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Teaching
and Learning
Vocabulary

Bringing Research to Practice

Edited by

Elfrieda H. Hiebert
Michael L. Kamil

Teaching and Learning Vocabulary

Bringing Research to Practice

This page intentionally left blank

Teaching and Learning Vocabulary

Bringing Research to Practice

Edited by

Elfrieda H. Hiebert

University of California, Berkeley

Michael L. Kamil

Stanford University

1 ^

2005

LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS
Mahwah, New Jersey London

All rights reserv ed. No part of this book may be reproduced in
any form, by photostat, microform, retrieval system, or any
othermeans, without priorwritten permission of the publisher.

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers
10 Industrial Avenue
Mahwah, New Jersey 07430
www. erlbaum .com

Cover design by Kathryn Houghtaling Lacey

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Teaching and learning vocabulary : bringing research to practice
/ edited by Elfrieda H. Hiebert, Michael L. Kamil
p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-8058-5285-9 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN 0-8058-5286-7 (pbk. : alk. Paper)

1. Vocabulary — Study and teaching. 2. Language Arts.

I. Hiebert, Elfrieda H. II. Kamil, Michael L.

LB 1 574.4 T42 2005

372.61— dc22 2004057708

CIP

Books published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates are printed on
acid-free paper, and their bindings are chosen for strength and
durability.

Printed in the United States of America
10 987654321

Dedicated to the memory of our friend and colleague,
Steven A. Stahl ( 1951-2004 )

This page intentionally left blank

Contents

Preface ix

1 Teaching and Learning Vocabulary: 1

Perspectives and Persistent Issues

Michael L. Kamil and Elfrieda H. Hiebert

PART I: PERSPECTIVES ON HOW VOCABULARY IS LEARNED

2 Why Vocabulary Instruction Needs to Be Long-Term 27

and Comprehensive

William Nagy

3 Vocabulary Growth Through Independent Reading 45

and Reading Aloud to Children

Anne E. Cunningham

4 Creating Opportunities to Acquire New Word Meanings 69

From Text

Judith A. Scott

PART II: INSTRUCTION AND INTERVENTIONS
THAT ENHANCE VOCABULARY

5 Four Problems With Teaching Word Meanings 95

(And What to Do to Make Vocabulary an Integral

Part of Instruction
Steven A. Stahl

Vll

Vlll

CONTENTS

6 Bringing Words to Life in Classrooms
With English-Language Learners
Margarita Calderon, Diane August, Robert Slavin,

Daniel Duran, Nancy Madden, and Alan Cheung

7 Sustained Vocabulary-Learning Strategy Instruction
for English-Language Learners

Maria S. Carlo, Diane August, and Catherine E. Snow

8 Classroom Practices for Vocabulary Enhancement in
Prekindergarten: Lessons From PAVEd for Success
Paula J. Schwanenflugel, Claire E. Hamilton, Barbara A. Bradley,
Hilary P. Ruston, Stacey Neuharth-Pritchett, and M. Adelaida Restrepo

9 Strategies for Teaching Middle-Grade Students to Use
Word-Part and Context Clues to Expand Reading Vocabulary
James F. Baumann, George Font, Elizabeth Carr Edwards, and
Eileen Boland

PART III: PERSPECTIVES ON WHICH WORDS
TO CHOOSE FOR INSTRUCTION

10 Choosing Words to Teach

Isabel L. Beck, Margaret G. McKeown, and Linda Kucan

11 Size and Sequence in Vocabulary' Development: Implications
for Choosing Words for Primary Grade Vocabulary
Instruction

Andrew Biemiller

12 In Pursuit of an Effective, Efficient Vocabulary Curriculum
for Elementary Students

Elfrieda H. Hiebert

Author Index
Subject Index

115

137

155

179

207

223

243

265

271

Preface

In early 2002, colleagues from the Pacific Resources for Education and
Learning (PREL) asked us to facilitate a series of conferences as part of a na-
tional leadership initiative on reading/language mastery within the Re-
gional Educational Laboratory system. At that time, the report of the
National Reading Panel had been available for 18 months. Discussion on
listservs and at conferences about the phonemic awareness and phonics sec-
tion of the report had been extensive. For the educational leaders within
states and districts at whom the national leadership initiative on read-
ing/language mastery was aimed, we reasoned that it was also critical to fo-
cus attention on the other three topics of the report — fluency, vocabulary,
and comprehension. Consequently, over the next 3 years, PREL held fo-
rums for educational leaders that focused on fluency (2002), vocabulary
(2003), and comprehension (2004).

The core group of chapters in this volume originated from presentations
at the forum on vocabulary that was held in Dallas, Texas on October 1-2,
2003. In designing the conference and this volume, we were particularly in-
terested in addressing those areas that the National Reading Panel had
identified as requiring investigation. As the report of the National Reading
Panel and the content of chapters in this volume illustrate, vocabulary holds
a special place among the five literacy components of reading. First, vocab-
ulary is not a developmental skill or one that can be seen as ever fully mas-
tered. The expansion and elaboration of vocabularies — whether speaking,
listening, reading, or writing — can be expected to extend across a lifetime.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to separate vocabulary from comprehension.

The chapters cluster around three persistent issues in the learning and
teaching of vocabulary: (a) how are words learned and taught as a function
of word features, content areas, and developmental levels? (b) how do vo-
cabulary interventions differ for different age groups and content areas?
and (c) what words should be emphasized in instruction?

PREFACE

We identified scholars whose programs of research address one or more
of these questions. These programs of research have been recognized by
national panels and editorial boards of archival journals. Scholars were
asked to summarize the findings that have resulted from these programs of
work, including studies that may be ongoing, and to describe the implica-
tions of these findings for educators who are responsible for implementing
state and federal policies in state and district agencies, and for researchers
who are beginning programs of work on vocabulary. As will become evident
in reading the chapters, many of these scholars are considering the nature
of vocabulary learning in relation to the diversity that is present in many
current-day classrooms.

There are many people who collaborate in making an endeavor such as
this one successful. The authors of the chapters responded with alacrity and
graciousness to our deadlines. As a result, this volume is available to educa-
tional leaders and researchers in a timely fashion. We would not be publish-
ing this volume without the continued faith of Lane Akers of Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates (LEA) in our work and also his ongoing patience. Sara
Scudder at LEA has been the most efficient production editor with whom we
have had the pleasure of working. Fran Lehr and Laurie Clark Klavins were
instrumental in ensuring that Sara and her colleagues at LEA received a
carefully edited manuscript. We also recognize the colleagues who have
been part of our effort on a day-to-day basis: Alice Folkins, Charles Fisher,
and Diana Arya. They have checked and rechecked texts, contacted and re-
contacted authors, and coded and recoded materials to ensure accurate au-
thor and topic indices. We are thankful for their efforts.

Our colleagues at PREL had the vision for the forum series. They also
provided the resources to organize the forum and edit the volume. Their
support made it possible for speakers to come to the forum and prepare
their chapters for publication. Ron Toma was the director of the Regional
Educational Laboratory at PREL who invited us to participate in the project
initially. Ludy van Broekhuizen w r as the associate director of the Regional
Educational Laboratory when the project was initiated and, after Ron’s re-
tirement, the director who continued to support our efforts. Jan Jenner was
the administrator extraordinaire whose efforts have ensured a product of
quality. For the hard work and vision of Ron, Ludy, and Jan, we will always
be grateful.

Finally, the educational leaders who have attended the forums — many of
whom attended all three — have been a compass for us in editing this volume
and in designing our research programs. Their questions and eagerness to
learn have been the source behind this volume. We are hopeful that many stu-
dents will benefit from the findings of the research reported in this volume.

— Elfrieda H. Hiebert
Michael L. Kamil

Chapter

Teaching and Learning Vocabulary

Perspectives and Persistent Issues

Michael L. Kamil

Stanford University

Elfrieda H. Hiebert

University of California, Berkeley

This book addresses the role of vocabulary in reading text. The role of vocabu-
lary and reading is a complex one, as reading researchers have long recog-
nized. In 1925, Whipple described the central role of vocabulary thus: “Growth
in reading power means, therefore, continuous enriching and enlarging of the
reading vocabulary and increasing clarity of discrimination in appreciation of
word values” (p. 76). In 1942, Davis described comprehension as comprised of
two skills: word knowledge, or vocabulary, and reasoning.

Words represent complex and, often, multiple meanings. Furthermore,
these complex, multiple meanings of words need to be understood in the
context of other words in the sentences and paragraphs of texts. Not only
are students expected to understand words in texts, but also texts can be ex-
pected to introduce them to many new words. The vocabulary of written
language is much more extensive and diverse than the vocabulary of oral
language (Hayes, Wolfer, & Wolfe, 1996).

One way of illustrating some of the challenges that readers can have
with vocabulary is to provide a real-life example from instructional mate-
rials. The following words illustrate approximately four or five of every
1 00 words in the first-grade anthologies of the reading programs that are

KAMIL AND HIEBERT

approved for purchase with state funds in Texas (Texas Education
Agency, 1997):

scritch, spittlebug, steeple (Adams et al., 2000)
snowcones, sneezed, spooky (Afflerbach et al., 2000))
saleslady, steered, stump (Farr et al., 2001)
shuns, scampered, sopping (Flood et al., 2001)
scatting, skiddle, succulents (Scholastic, 2000)

These words demonstrate the diversity of vocabulary in a reading pro-
gram even at the end of Grade 1 . Based on the frequency of words within a
corpus of 17.25 million words taken from representative kindergarten
through college texts (Zeno, Ivens, Millard, & Duvvuri, 1 995), each of the
words just listed had a frequency of less than three occurrences within a
million words of running text. Indeed, most are likely to appear fewer
than once in a million words of text. Some of the words such as sneezed,
spooky, saleslady, steered, and stump are likely easy for students to under-
stand once they decode or hear the word pronounced because most chil-
dren have heard or even spoken these words in conversation. Other words
such as shuns, scatting (used in this particular text to describe a form of jazz
singing), and scritch are ones that even high-school students do not know
(Dale & O’Rourke, 1981).

The types of vocabulary in texts that are used for instruction is but one of
the many problems that need to be addressed in vocabulary research and
instruction. Our task, in this introductory chapter, is foreshadowing the
themes that run throughout the book. In so doing, the chapter begins by
outlining a perspective on vocabulary learning, especially as it relates to the
reading of text. The second section of the chapter develops a perspective on
vocabulary teaching as it pertains to reading text. The final section of the
chapter presents several persistent issues in the teaching and learning of
vocabulary — issues that, if not the direct focus of every chapter in this vol-
ume, underlie much of the work of contributors to this volume.

A PERSPECTIVE ON VOCABULARY LEARNING

The National Reading Panel (NICHD, 2000) identified the components of
reading as phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and compre-
hension. As the content of the chapters in this book illustrates, vocabulary
holds a special place among these components. Vocabulary is not a devel-
opmental skill or one that can ever be seen as fully mastered. The expansion
and elaboration of vocabularies is something that extends across a lifetime.

1 . THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF VOCABULARY

A first consideration in delineating the construct of “vocabulary” in re-
search and practice is that individuals have various types of vocabulary
that they use for different purposes. Failure to distinguish among the dif-
ferent kinds of vocabulary can lead to confusion and disagreement about
both research findings and instructional implications. Generically, vocab-
ulary is the knowledge of meanings of words. What complicates this defini-
tion is the fact that words come in at least two forms: oral and print.
Knowledge of words also comes in at least two forms, receptive — that
which we can understand or recognize — and productive — the vocabulary
we use when we write or speak.

Oral vocabulary is the set of words for which we know the meanings when
we speak or read orally. Print vocabulary consists of those words for which
the meaning is known when we write or read silently. These are important
distinctions because the set of words that beginning readers know are
mainly oral representations. As they learn to read, print vocabulary comes
to play an increasingly larger role in literacy than does the oral vocabulary.

Productive vocabulary is the set of words that an individual can use when
writing or speaking. They are words that are well-known, familiar, and
used frequently. Conversely, receptive, or recognition, vocabulary is that set of
words for which an individual can assign meanings when listening or read-
ing. These are words that are often less well known to students and less fre-
quent in use. Individuals may be able assign some sort of meaning to them,
even though they may not know the full subtleties of the distinction.
Typically, these are also words that individuals do not use spontaneously.
However, when individuals encounter these words, they recognize them,
even if imperfectly.

In general, recognition or receptive vocabulary is larger than production
vocabulary. And, as noted earlier, for beginning readers, oral vocabulary
far outstrips print vocabulary. This is one of the determining factors in
shaping beginning reading instruction. Beginning reading instruction is
typically accomplished by teaching children a set of rules to decode printed
words to speech. If the words are present in the child’s oral vocabulary, com-
prehension should occur as the child decodes and monitors the oral repre-
sentations. However, if the print vocabulary is more complex than the
child’s oral vocabulary, comprehension will not occur. That is, the process of
decoding a word to speech does nothing more than change its representa-
tion from visual print to oral speech. If it is not in the child’s vocabulary , it is
simply an unusual collection of speech sounds. The details of this “theory”
of vocabulary and reading instruction can be summarized in the following
way: Comprehension is a function of oral language and word recognition. That is,
comprehension of print is a result of the ability to decode and recognize
words and oral language knowledge. There are two intermediate steps,
though. The first is the link between decoding and oral language.

KAMIL AND HIEBERT

Decoding to Oral Language

Decoding words to speech requires a background of oral language ability
and the knowledge of letter-to-sound correspondences. A reader must
translate the print on a page into speech. Once a reader decodes a word,
oral language plays the predominant part in comprehension. In fact, Sdcht,
Beck, Hauke, Kleiman, and James (1974) showed that for younger readers,
up to about Grade 3, reading comprehension and oral language compre-
hension were roughly interchangeable. This relationship implies that the
texts that children are given in early reading instruction must be closely tied
to their oral language abilities. The vocabulary that young readers are
asked to decode cannot be far more complex than that of their oral lan-
guage. Thus, words such as shuns or scatting from the Texas-adopted texts
cited earlier in this chapter may be decoded eventually but may well be
treated as nonsense words by many first graders. Historically — although
not currently the pattern in the textbook anthologies, as the previous exam-
ples show — beginning readers have been given texts where most of the vo-
cabulary is limited to those words within their oral language. That way,
children can devote their attention to the decoding of words that, once fig-
ured out, relate to familiar experiences.

The second intermediate step is that oral language ability should lead to
oral comprehension. Students need to understand that what they decode
should make as much sense as something they would say. This relationship
assumes that a host of other factors do not complicate the picture. For ex-
ample, nonnative speakers of English may not automatically make use of
the decoded representations, even if they produce accurate oral represen-
tations. For native speakers, the syntactic complexity or the discourse might
be complications that prevent comprehension from occurring even after
appropriate decoding has taken place.

The foregoing suggests that vocabulary occupies a central place in the
scheme of learning to read. Vocabulary serves as the bridge between the
word-level processes of phonics and the cognitive processes of compre-
hension. Once students have become proficient at the decoding task, how-
ever, a shift occurs in the vocabulary of text. Texts now become the context
for encountering vocabulary that is not within one’s oral vocabulary. A
preponderance of common and familiar words continues to occur in texts,
as running discourse depends on a core group of words. In the Zeno et al.
(1995) analysis of 17.25 million words that represented texts used in
schools from kindergarten through college, 5,580 words accounted for
80% of the total words (and approximately 90% of the total words in
Grades 3 to 9 texts; Carroll, Davies, & Richman, 1971). However, the
number of types or unique words that accounted for the other 20% of total
words was enormous: 150,000.

1 . THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF VOCABULARY

These rare words are much more likely to occur in the vocabularies of
text than in oral vocabularies. Hayes and his colleagues (Hayes & Ahrens,
1988; Hayes et al., 1996) have considered the commonality and rareness
ofwords in oral and written language. Table 3. 1 of Cunningham’s chapter
in this book presents the data on the numbers of rare words in different
kinds of texts ranging from scientific articles to concept books for pre-
schoolers and oral language corpora ranging from television programs to
conversations. Common words were defined as those among the 10,000
most common (rather than the words that Zeno et al. [1995] identified as
occurring 10 times or more per million-word written corpus). These re-
searchers conclude that speech typically contains far fewer rare words
than written language. Even the texts that are considered children’s books
or literature have more rare words than all oral discourse except for the
testimony of expert witnesses.

Presumably, students who are automatic readers recognize the majority
ofwords that are common (i.e., most of the 5,580 most frequent words). The
contexts that are provided in paragraphs and sentences can then be used to
understand words that occur less frequently but that are critical to the
meaning of the discourse. When the number of known words is not suffi-
cient to figure out the meaning of unknown words, comprehension breaks
down. Such a scenario can happen with highly proficient readers when they
read in highly technical areas for which they may have insufficient back-
ground knowledge. Consider the following excerpt:

If modern techniques such as “optical proximity correction” are applied
to compensate for the blurring effects of diffraction, photolithography
can create features smaller than the wavelength oflight used in projecting
the pattern. In this example of optical proximity correction, a compli-
cated pattern used for the mask results in crisp features on the chip.
(Hutcheson, 2004, p. 80)

For many readers of this chapter, attending to words that are rare in
their written lexicon (i.e., diffraction, photolithography), as well as attend-
ing to words with which they are familiar but that appear in a phrase that de-
scribes an unfamiliar process (e.g., optical proximity correction), may cause
so much attention that overall meaning is compromised.

Once students reach the point where words that are not part of their oral
vocabularies become prominent in school texts, numerous issues in the de-
sign and/or selection of texts and of instructional activities arise. Hiebert’s
(chapter 12, this volume) analyses show that, within the typical 1,560-word,
fourth-grade text in a reading/language arts program, approximately 4.3
words per every 100 are rare. It is unlikely that all rare words can be taught
or even that they should be taught (to ensure that students acquire appro-

KAMIL AND HIEBERT

priate context strategies). Texts can thus be seen as both providing oppor-
tunities for developing richer vocabularies as well as placing high demands
on the vocabulary learning strategies and existing vocabularies of students.

PERSPECTIVES ON VOCABULARY TEACHING

A clear perspective on vocabulary learning is useful. But without a simi-
larly clear perspective on meaningful instruction, students’ learning in
school will not be optimal. Fortunately for educators, a clear perspective
on the components of effective vocabulary instruction is available in the
report of the National Reading Panel (NICHD, 2000). The Congressional
mandate to the National Reading Panel was to “assess the status of re-
search-based knowledge, including the effectiveness of various ap-
proaches to teaching children to read” (p. 1 - 1 ). Whereas other researchers
have considered aspects of vocabulary teaching (e.g., Kuhn & Stahl, 1998;
Swanborn & de Glopper, 1999), the review of the National Reading Panel
was a comprehensive analysis of experimental studies that have examined
vocabulary instruction.

Using the definitions of Davis (1942) and Whipple ( 1 925), where vocabu-
lary is seen to be an integral part of comprehension, the National Reading
Panel defined vocabulary as one of two aspects of comprehension instruc-
tion, the other being comprehension strategy instruction. By identifying
vocabulary as one of five major components of reading, the National Read-
ing Panel has directed attention to vocabulary instruction. Although some
of the research base may not be as extensive or as robust as would be hoped,
the report of the National Reading Panel has brought vocabulary into the
foreground after a period when little attention was given to vocabulary in-
struction in classrooms (Scott, Jamieson-Noel, & Asselin, 2003) or in re-
search programs (RAND Reading Study Group, 2002).

Findings of the National Reading Panel

In their synthesis of instructional research on vocabulary, the National
Reading Panel (NICHD, 2000) identified 50 studies that met their quality
requirements. These 50 studies included a total of 73 samples of students.
Of that total, 53 samples (or 73%) were students in Grades 3 to 8. This is not
to say that vocabulary instruction is not critical with preschoolers through
second graders. In fact, research shows that the vocabularies of preschool-
ers predict later reading achievement (Hart & Risley, 1995). However, the
volume of published studies that met the requirements of the National
Reading Panel was simply not sufficient to make substantive conclusions
about early levels. Projects such as that of Schwanenflugel et al. (chapter 8,
this volume) show what is needed and possible in the design and synthesis of
vocabulary programs with preschoolers.

1 . THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF VOCABULARY

The concludi ng statement of the National Reading Panel’s (NICHD, 2000)
synthesis of vocabulary research provides a succinct summary of classrooms
where students’ vocabularies expand and are elaborated: “Dependence on a
single vocabulary instruction method will not result in optimal learning” (p.
4—4). This conclusion is understandable in light of the complexity of what it
means to know a word (Beck & McKeown, 1991; Nagy & Scott, 2000). This
conclusion also means that educators need to design classrooms experiences
that are multi-faceted, if students are to acquire new words and increase the
depth of their word knowledge. The design of these environments does not
come about, however, by happenstance. The National Reading Panel identi-
fied eight specific findings that can provide a scientifically based foundation
for the design of rich, multifaceted vocabulary instruction. These conclusions
of the National Reading Panel are summarized in Table 1.1.

TABLE 1.1

Summary of the National Reading Panel's Specific Conclusions
about Vocabulary Instruction

1. There is a need for direct instruction of vocabulary items required for a
specific text.

2. Repetition and multiple exposure to vocabulary items are important. Students
should be given items that will be likely to appear in many contexts.

3. Learning in rich contexts is valuable for vocabulary learning. Vocabulary words
should be those that the learner will find useful in many contexts. When
vocabulary items are derived from content learning materials, the learner will be
better equipped to deal with specific reading matter in content areas.

4. Vocabulary tasks should be restructured as necessary. It is important to be
certain that students fully understand what is asked of them in the context of
reading, rather than focusing only on the words to be learned. Restructuring
seems to be most effective for low-achieving or at-risk students.

5. Vocabulary learning is effective when it entails active engagement in learning
tasks.

6. Computer technology can be used effectively to help teach vocabulary.

7. Vocabulary can be acquired through incidental learning. Much of a student’s
vocabulary will have to be learned in the course of doing things other than
explicit vocabulary learning. Repetition, richness of context, and motivation
may also add to the efficacy of incidental learning of vocabulary.

8. Dependence on a single vocabulary instruction method will not result in
optimal learning. A variety of methods was used effectively with emphasis on
multimedia aspects of learning, richness of context in which words are to be
learned, and the number of exposures to words that learners receive.

Note. From National Reading Panel (2000), page 4-4.

KAMIL AND HIEBERT

As the Panel’s conclusions indicate, a critical feature of effective class-
rooms is the instruction of specific words. This instruction includes lessons
and activities where students apply their vocabulary knowledge and strate-
gies to reading and writing. Discussions are held where teachers and stu-
dents talk about words, their features, and strategies for understanding
unfamiliar words.

Often it has been assumed that the vocabulary of students is too large to
be affected by the small number of words that can be taught directly. The re-
search emphatically demonstrates that this is not the case. Direct vocabu-
lary instruction was effective in improving comprehension. This should not
be surprising, given the “theory” of vocabulary set forth earlier. Nor should
it be surprising in light of the definitions of Davis and of Whipple. It may
also be that attention to specific words serves to direct students’ attention to
features of words that they then generalize in a strategic manner. For exam-
ple, a text called The Waterfall (London, 1999) that is currently part of a
leading basal reading program has a number of compound words in addi-
tion to its title: backpack, upstream, rainbow, cookout, bonfire, driftwood, and
river-smooth. By directly teaching one or more of these words, it may well be
that students’ awareness of compound words increases.

As is evident in the Panel’s conclusions, the methods for directly and ex-
plicitly teaching words are many. In all, the Panel identified 2 1 methods
that have been found to be effective in research projects. Many of these
methods emphasize the underlying concept of a word and its connections
to other words. Stahl (chapter 5, this volume) illustrates methods such as
semantic mapping and Venn diagrams that use graphics. Another
method — the keyword method — uses words and illustrations that high-
light salient features of meaning. For example, keywords may be words
acoustically similar to a salient part of a word as well as connected by
meaning (e.g., “hair suit” fox hirsute; Foil & Alber, 2002). Students are also
supported in visualizing or drawing a picture (e.g., a person wearing a suit
made of hair) or a picture is made for them (Foil & Alber, 2002). Despite
the consistent and extensive research base for this method, the prepara-
tion of materials for the keyword method seems to place a heavy burden
on instructors. Furthermore, using images or pictures to trigger word as-
sociations has limitations in the words that can be learned. For example, it
would be difficult to get an acoustic mnemonic for the word vary and the
family of words that it represents (variation, variety, varietal). Conse-
quently, it is not surprising that this technique is not used extensively in
classrooms, despite its empirical foundation.

Although direct and explicit guidance on specific words and on word
learning strategies are critical, the Panel’s conclusions also point to the inci-
dental learning of vocabulary. That is, students acquire vocabulary when it
is not explicitly or intentionally taught. Indirect exposure contributes most

1 . THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF VOCABULARY

of the vocabulary learning that occurs with students. Given the size of vocab-
ularies that people attain and the amount of time available for instruction,
this finding is not surprising. Research gives us little insight into the precise
mechanisms by which this implicit or indirect learning takes place. How-
ever, in the Panel’s identification of characteristics of effective vocabulary
lie possible explanations. Furthermore, although we describe the vocabu-
lary that arises from frequent reading and rich oral language discussions as
incidental learning, the creation of such occasions in schools and homes
represents intentions on the part of educators and parents. As Graves
(2000) noted, students need to know about words, not simply acquire new
words, if they are to be successful in understanding unfamiliar vocabulary in
their reading. The number of words that students will encounter means that
priority is given to developing strategies that students can use when they are
reading independently and to occasions where they can apply these strate-
gies in their reading and writing, as well as discuss the ways in which the au-
thors they read use words. Underlying these strategies is a curiosity about
words — the relationships between words with similar roots, the connotative
and denotative meanings of words, the ways in which new words enter lan-
guage, the idiomatic uses of language, the multiple meanings of individual
words, the vocabularies of specialty areas, the connections between English
words and Romance or Greek words, and so on.

There has been much discussion about the role of wide reading in inci-
dental learning (see Cunningham, chapter 3, this volume). The National
Reading Panel found no experimental studies that confirm this relation-
ship. However, extensive reading may be the means whereby characteristics
of effective instruction that the Panel identified can be supported. For ex-
ample, extensive reading gives students repeated exposure to particular
words. Multiple exposures to vocabulary was one of the factors that the
Panel confirmed as contributing to vocabulary learning. As Scott’s (chapter
4, this volume) review shows, most words are not acquired in a single expo-
sure. Both practice and repeated encounters with words seem to be impor-
tant for the acquisition of vocabulary. Extensive reading is also one of the
means by which students see vocabulary in rich contexts. According to the
National Reading Panel, seeing vocabulary in the rich contexts provided by
authentic texts rather than in isolation was one of the characteristics of in-
struction that produced robust vocabulary learning.

The perspective that comes from the Panel’s conclusions about class-
rooms that extend and enrich students’ vocabularies is one of variety and
richness. Effective classrooms provide multiple ways for students to learn
and interact with words. These ways of learning words and strategies for
learning words engage students and motivate them to listen for and look
for new words. The contexts in which students see words are rich, such as
books that use language inventively, and pertain to many content areas.

KAMIL AND HIEBERT

The ways of learning words also include technology and multimedia
where students can interact with language orally, pictorially, and in writ-
ing. What is also clear is that this learning is not a happenstance occur-
rence. Classrooms where students receive sound word instruction (Scott &:
Nagy, 2004) are ones where lessons focus their attention on specific words
and word-learning strategies, where opportunities to talk about words are
many, and where occasions for applying what has been taught with engag-
ing and content-rich texts and with motivating purposes occur with regu-
larity and purpose.

Updates to the National Reading Panel Vocabulary Database

Since the National Reading Panel synthesized their findings, two of the na-
tion’s regional laboratories — Pacific Resources for Education and Learning
(PREL) and the Laboratory for Student Success (LSS) — have supported the
updating of several of the databases on which the National Reading Panel
based their findings, including vocabulary instruction (see Kamil & Hiebert,
2004). An additional 13 studies on vocabulary instruction — or an increase of
26% over the original database — were identified through the application of
the same search strategies as those used in the National Reading Panel
search. Despite this substantial increase in studies, no new findings emerged.
There were, however, substantiations of patterns reported in the National
Reading Panel. Three of the studies emphasized the positive role that com-
puter-assisted activities can have in the development of vocabulary
(Clements & McLoughlin, 1986; Davidson, Elcock, & Noyes, 1996; Heise,
Papalewis, & Tanner, 1991). The review also produced continued substantia-
tion for the role that read-aloud events can have in supporting vocabulary de-
velopment of children, particularly kindergartners (Ewers & Brownson,
1999; Leung, 1992; Robbins & Ehri, 1994). Researchers are using findings
such as these to design and implement interventions for preschoolers, as is il-
lustrated in chapter 8 by Schwanenflugel and colleagues (this volume).

There are many other studies of vocabulary that were not included in ei-
ther the National Reading Panel or the PREL/LSS databases because of the
inclusion criteria of those reviews. Many of these studies have relevance for
instruction, even though they were not experimental studies of instruction.
In the following sections, issues that require additional attention by re-
searchers are raised.

THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF VOCABULARY:
PERSISTENT ISSUES

Four issues are particularly persistent in discussions among vocabulary in-
struction, as evident in the chapters in this volume: (a) the number of words

1 , THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF VOCABULARY

that should be taught, (b) the particular words that should be taught, (c) the
vocabulary learning of two groups of students — English-Language
Learners and potentially at-risk students, and (4) the role of independent
reading in vocabulary learning. These are not the only issues in vocabulary
research and instruction, but these four issues are those that consistently
underlie the presentation of issues and solutions by authors in this volume
and in broader educational circles. We examine each one in turn.

The Number of Words That Should Be Taught

Researchers’ estimates of the size of vocabularies of individuals at the same
age level, such as third grade or college, vary by as much as an order of mag-
nitude (Nagy & Anderson, 1984). These variations reflect different defini-
tions of what it means to know a word, as well as types of vocabularies being
considered (i.e., the receptive/productive and oral/written dimensions). A
more useful perspective, in considering the vocabulary opportunities and
tasks that texts present for readers, is to consider the number of different
words in the typical texts that students read in schools. Beginning with
Thorndike’s (1921) effort and continuing through that of Zeno et al.
( 1 995), different research groups have collected and collated the number of
words in texts that students might typically read in school. Even these re-
ports of the number of words in school texts leave many questions. For ex-
ample, what counts as a unique word in a reading vocabulary? In some
databases, the possessive of a word is counted as a different unique word
from the original word. Nagy and Anderson (1984) used a sample of
Carroll, Davies, and Richman’s (1971) database, which drew on a corpus of
5 million total words from a sample of Grade 3 through Grade 9 school
texts. They clustered unique words into families where knowledge of the
root word would support students in determining a related word’s meaning
when that word was encountered in a text. A related word needed to be se-
mantically transparent to be included in a family. That is, if the meaning of
the related word could be inferred with knowledge of the ancestor or origi-
nal word and the context of text, the word was classified as semantically
transparent. According to their definition, words within a family related to
the word know would include knowledge, known, knowing, knowledgeable, but
not know-nothing. Based on this definition, Nagy and Anderson (1984) esti-
mated that school texts from Grades 3 through 9 contain approximately 88,
5000 distinct word families. For each word that students know, there are ap-
proximately two semantically transparent derivatives.

Even if it can be assumed that third graders know approximately 25,000
semantic families (Nagy & Anderson, 1984), the instructional task of pro-
moting the word meanings for the additional 63,500 semantic families that
will appear in texts from Grades 3 to 9 is formidable. The instructional task

KAMIL AND HILBERT

needs to be viewed from the vantage point of what it means to know a word
and which vocabulary (i.e., productive-receptive, oral-print) is assessed.
Even in teaching a specific group of words, the range of words is sufficiently
large that students need to develop a generative stance toward vocabulary.
That is, the meanings of specific words need to be taught in ways that sup-
port students in understanding how words are connected semantically and
morphologically (Graves, Juel, & Graves, 2004).

The Words That Should Be Taught

As the summary of the primary findings of the NRP (NICHD, 2000) indi-
cated, vocabularies are expanded and elaborated in multiple ways. How-
ever, whereas the opportunities for learning words may be myriad, the
effects of comprehension on vocabulary were found most consistently
when at least some words are taught directly. The mandate of the NRP to
focus on instructional research meant that the critical question of curricu-
lum or identifying which words are best taught was not addressed. Educa-
tors and policymakers are left with the question of identifying which
words, from among the thousands of words that students will encounter in
their school careers, should be taught directly. Answers to this question
are a focus of several authors in this volume, particularly those whose
chapters appear in Part III.

Word frequency is one variable that will be proposed. According to Beck
and her colleagues (chapter 10, this volume), frequency should be applied
by ignoring the most frequent and the least frequent words, concentrating
on the middle levels of words. The argument is that the most frequent
words are probably already known and that the least frequent words should
be taught when they occur in reading.

Importance and utility are dearly factors that should guide the selection of
words to be taught. These criteria suggest that only words that are of some use
for students — words that they will see and use sufficiently often — should be
taught explicitly. However, this criterion should be applied with the fre-
quency criterion in mind. As students are likely to know many high-fre-
quency words, these are not good candidates for the importance criterion.

Instructional potential is another criterion that is clearly related to the
selection ofwords for explicit vocabulary instruction. That is, as suggested
by many of the authors of chapters in this volume, vocabulary instruction
should make sense in the context of the reading lesson. Words that are re-
lated to the selection, the content, or to a thematic unit have instructional
potential and should be considered high on the list of candidates for ex-
plicit instruction.

There is also an oral component that should be considered. The vocabu-
lary theory presented earlier suggests that younger students have a greater

1 . THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF VOCABULARY

oral vocabulary than reading vocabulary. For older students, this relation-
ship is probably reversed. The presence or absence of oral vocabulary
knowledge should be a consideration in the explicit instruction of reading
vocabulary items. Of course, conceptual understanding is an important cri-
terion, even though it is often neglected in discussions of vocabulary.

Finally, repetition is a factor that, although acknowledged in learning
theories that range from behaviorism to information processing (Stillings
et al., 1987), has not been addressed recently as a factor in the acquisition
of receptive, written vocabularies. Older research did consider this ques-
tion. Gates (1930) estimated the total number of explicit repetitions first
graders needed for learning a word based on intelligence quotient (IQ).
The number that stayed in the minds of publishers (and educators) for de-
cades was the one assigned to the middle IQ group (90-109): 35 repeti-
tions. Students with high IQs (120-129) needed only 20, Gates
hypothesized, whereas students with IQs from 60-69 needed 55 repeti-
tions. As were many of his era. Gates was concerned with IQ as an indicator
of learning ability. Today we no longer accept this one-dimensional view
of learning ability. What is valuable is that Gates and his counterparts saw
the learning of a word to result from numerous repetitions. Except for
very noteworthy occasions (e.g., the first time turbulence is experienced on
a plane — and this involves an oral vocabulary), single exposures to words
are unlikely to produce the desired learning.

Although repetitions are important, it is less clear how sufficient expo-
sure to particular words should be accomplished. For example, spacing of
exposure over time is more effective in the learning of most content than
bunching the learning in a single session (Donovan & Radosevich, 1999).
However, evidence for spaced presentations came from studies where in-
struction was explicit and where words often appeared in lists or singly, not
in texts. How this transfer to the incidental learning that takes place when
students encounter words in, for example, reading self-selected or even as-
signed texts on their own is unclear.

Addressing the Needs of English-Language Learners
and Potentially At-Risk Students

A consistent 40% of a fourth-grade cohort falls into the below-basic category
on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP; Donahue,
Finnegan, Lutkus, Allen, & Campbell, 2001). This figure has not changed
substantially over the past decade, despite various school reform efforts.
Overly represented among this below-basic group are students whose fami-
lies qualify for free/reduced-price school lunches. Whereas 24% of students
not eligible for free/reduced-price school lunches had scores in the be-
low-basic category, 55% of those eligible fall into the below-basic category.

KAMIL AND HIEBERT

Furthermore, a substantial percentage of these students live in contexts
where poverty is not the only variable in which their homes differ from the
mainstream culture of schools. The NAEP presents achievement level re-
sults on race/ethnicity by five groups: White, Black, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific
Islander, and American Indian/ Alaska Native. Of these five groups, the ma-
jority of two of these five groups perform at the below-basic level: Black (ap-
proximately 60% in 2003) and Hispanic (approximately 56% in 2003).

The practices that are described in this volume, particularly the in-
structional interventions described in Part II and the curricular plans of
Part III, need to be implemented intentionally and strategically for
groups of students who are consistently failing to attain the high literacy
levels required for full participation in the digital age. However, there
are substantial differences between students within the Hispanic group
who are native Spanish speakers and students who are native speakers of
English. We address the linguistic resources of native Spanish speakers
first and then move to the issue of ameliorating potential vocabulary
gaps that may result from poverty.

Linguistic Resources of Native Spanish Speakers. Understanding the
connections between Romance languages and English is critical for the in-
struction of all learners. However, with native speakers of Spanish account-
ing for an increasing percentage of school-age children (U.S. Census, 2001)
and the continued below-basic performances of a majority of Hispanic stu-
dents (Donahue et al., 2001), this attention is particularly salient.

As chapters in this volume by Calderon et al. (chapter 6) and Carlo et al.
(chapter 7) illustrate, a critical aspect of Spanish that has been left ignored
in the vocabulary programs of textbooks iri the United States is the connec-
tion between “everyday” words in Spanish and the Latin roots of many aca-
demic or literary words in English. With French, Portuguese, Italian, and
Romanian, Spanish is one of a handful of Romance languages that has its
origins in Latin. English has its linguistic roots in the Germanic languages
of the Angles and the Saxons. When the Normans conquered England in
1066, a layer of Latin-based, French words was added to label concepts for
which Anglo-Saxons had Germanic-based words. Coupled with the univer-
sal use of Latin words in science, this layer added to a preponderance of
Latin-based words to English. Typically, written discourse, especially that of
academic texts, uses words from the Latin-derived system of English to a
greater degree than does speech. Instead of using Anglo-Saxon-based
words such as bug, cold, dig, enough, and first, writers of narrative or exposi-
tory literature are likely to use words such as insect, frigid, excavate, sufficient,
and primary. As Spanish is an immediate descendant of Latin (rather than a
secondary one, like English), some of the common words in Spanish are
closer to these literary and academic words. A list of 10 common words in

1 . THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF VOCABULARY

Spanish and their relationship to the literary and academic English words is
illustrated in Table 1 .2. This may make it easier for ELL students to under-
stand these words if they recognize that they can use their knowledge of
Spanish to assist in reading English. All shared cognates in Spanish and
English are not of this type where the Spanish word is more literary or aca-
demic than the English word. There are also many cases where the shared
cognate is a commonly used word (e.g., animal/animal, plant/planta).

TABLE 1.2

1 0 Common English Words & Their Latin & Spanish Equivalents

English

common

word

English literary/academic words

Latin root

Spanish
common word

brave

Valiant, valid, value, valorous, valor

Valere

(to be strong)

valiente

bug

Insect, insecticide, insectivore,
insectile

Insectum

insecto

cold

Frigid, Frigid Zones:
South & North

Frigus (coldness,
frost)

Frio

dig

Cavern(ous), cave, cavity, excavate

Cavus (hollow)

excavar

empty

Vacant, vacate, vacancy

Vacare

(to be empty)

vacia

enough

Sufficient, suffice, sufficiency

Sufficiere
(to provide)

suficiente

first

Prime, primate, primal, primacy,
primary, primarily, primer,
primitive, primeval, primogeniture,
primordial, primordium; phrases:
prima facie, prima donna

Primus (first)

primero

mean

Significance, significant

Significans

(meaning)

significar

moon

Lunar, Luna, lunacy, lunatic,
lunation, lunarian phrases:
lunar month, lunar year

Luna (moon)

luna

sell

Vendor, vender, vend, venal

Venus (sale)

vender

sun

Solar, solstice, solarium

Sol (the sun)

sol

tree

Arbor, arboraceous, arboreal,
arboretum

Arbor (tree)

arbol

wash

Lather, lathery, lavender
(originally used as a bath perfume),
lavatory, lavation, laver, lavish

Lavare
(to wash)

lavar

KAMIL AND HIEBERT

There are also a substantial number of words where both the Spanish and
English cognate are unknown by most elementary-level students, especially
in the primary grades (e.g., terrarium/terrario, adaptation! adaptation). How-
ever, in a subject area such as science (Bravo, Hiebert, & Pearson, 2004), the
percentage of cognates where the Spanish word is a high-frequency word
can account for as much as one third of the critical theme words.

Some native speakers of Spanish who are taught to read in English make
these connections (Nagy, Garcia, Durgunoglu, & Hancin-Bhatt, 1993).
Many do not. A neglected aspect of instruction has often been the genera-
tive nature of the Latin-based cognates. For native speakers of English and
speakers of native languages that are not Romance languages, such instruc-
tion is essential. For native Spanish speakers (and smaller percentages of
children who enter American schools speaking one of the other Romance
languages), failing to build on this knowledge base is a missed opportunity.

Although it is erroneous to believe that simple cognate instruction will
ameliorate the achievement gap for Hispanic students, a modicum of in-
structional emphasis on cognates can lead to increased achievement
(Jimenez, Garcia, & Pearson, 1995). This instruction, of course, has limits.
Nash (1997) produced a compendium of 20,000 cognates in Spanish and
English, but many words are ones that elementary-level students are un-
likely to have encountered in Spanish, such as the Greek-derived words
that are used internationally in science and commerce for new inventions
(e.g., bionics). However, Nash estimates that for Spanish and English,
cognates account for between 30% and 50% of academic language. As aca-
demic language is the language of school, this is clearly a resource than
should not be overlooked.

Much more scholarship is needed about the literacy learning of nonna-
tive speakers of English. Despite the fact that Spanish speakers make up the
overwhelming majority of nonnative English speakers in this country,
scholarship needs to be directed to the students who speak one of the other
383 languages reported on the most recent U.S. Census (2001). A panel
that extends the efforts of the National Reading Panel to English-Language
Learners — the National Literacy Panel for Language Minority Children
and Youth, of which several contributors to this volume (August, Beck,
Kamil, and Calderon) are a part — is examining this research, although the
preliminary reports point to the paucity of the research on ELL.

Students Potentially At Risk. Research findings that are described in
several chapters are those of Hart and Risley (1995, 1999). This research
team followed the daily lives of 42 families in which, initially, the children
were between 1 and 2 years of age. The amount of language experience be-
fore age 3 accounted for all of the correlation between socioeconomic status
(SES) and verbal-intellectual competence of children at age 3 and then

1 . THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF VOCABULARY

again at ages 9-10. Prior to age 3, children in welfare families had heard
176 utterances per hour, whereas their peers in working-class and profes-
sional families had heard 301 and 487 utterances, respectively, during the
same period. All families talked to young children to ensure their needs or
safety (“Don’t touch the stove.”). Where families were different was in what
Hart and Risley characterized as extra talk. Extra talk went beyond the ev-
eryday business of family life such as questions about books that children
had heard or about experiences that the family had shared such as a trip to a
store or park. Unlike their counterparts in professional families, the chil-
dren in welfare families were infrequently asked questions such as “What
did you do when we went to Nana’s last time?” that required them to de-
scribe and elaborate experiences.

The role of texts in the development of rich conversations is likely criti-
cal, although researchers such as Hart and Risley do not separate the ef-
fects of talk around books from parent conversation. Even professional
parents typically do not use words such as charming or knapsack (words
used in a popular read-aloud for young children; Hoban, 1964) or monu-
mental and cellar (words used in another popular read-aloud for young
children; Wells, 1973).

The projects of Dickinson and Tabors (2001), as well as that of
Schwanenftugel and colleagues (chapter 8, this volume), illustrate ef-
forts to translate findings such as these into preschool contexts. How-
ever, school-age children continue to need to be part of rich classroom
talk environments. Snow and her colleagues (Snow, Barnes, Chandler,
Goodman, & Hemphill, 2000; Blum-Kulka & Snow, 2002) also demon-
strate how opportunities to interact with adults influence the vocabulary
of school-age children. According to Snow et al. (2000): “Our findings
suggest that ten or twenty minutes a day alone with an adult is more than
most children have access to, but that even so little time can make a dif-
ference in children’s vocabularies and in their reading comprehension
skills” (p. 171).

Texts provide an ideal context in which to foster at least some of this rich
classroom talk, as Beck et al. describe in chapter 10 in this book. When the
design of activities in classrooms will need to be arranged carefully, amelio-
rating the vocabulary gap may be within the realm of possibility. This sug-
gestion comes from the extensive experiences that language educators
have had, such as those in the Army Language School. In the latter context,
adults have been able to develop near-native competence in Vietnamese af-
ter approximately 1,300 hours of instruction (Walberg, Hase, & Rasher,
1 978). Using those numbers as a guide, a child who spends about 1 0 hours a
day in school, in play, and with media in English might gain comparable, al-
though seemingly natural and effortless, experience in 130 days (Walberg
etal., 1978, p. 428).

KAMIL AND HIEBERT

The Kinds and Amounts of Appropriate Independent Reading
in Vocabulary Learning

Substantial differences have been documented in the amounts that stu-
dents of different achievement levels read as part of reading instruction
(Biemiller, 1977-1978; Juel, 1990). Furthermore, strong connections
have been shown between wide reading, reading achievement, and vocab-
ulary acquisition (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1998). Good and poor read-
ers read for vastly different amounts outside of school. In a study where
fourth and fifth graders tracked their out-of-school reading, Anderson,
Wilson, and Fielding (1988) found that students at the 98th percentile
rank reported 65 minutes daily. Over a year-long period, a student read-
ing for this amount daily would read around 4.4 million words. Declines
were sharp after this point. By approximately the 75th percentile, stu-
dents averaged approximately 12 minutes of reading daily, covering
around 884,000 words annually. Students at the 50th percentile read 4.6
words daily, reading 282,000 words annually, whereas students at the 25th
percentile read about a minute daily, reading around 60,000 words annu-
ally. In a million words of text, students will have been exposed to a core
group of 5,580 words 10 times or more — and they will have encountered
many more words.

However, such data leave unanswered the question of whether good
readers are good because they read more or whether they simply choose to
read more because they are good readers. In the National Reading Panel’s
review of existing data, few well-conducted experimental studies on the ef-
fects of independent reading were found. Among the existing studies, most
researchers reported small or no gains, or even slightly negative results, in
reading achievement as a result of such classroom activity (Carver 8c
Liebert, 1995; Holt & O’Tuel, 1989; Vollands, Topping, & Evans, 1999).

The Panel did not reject the practice but called for more experimental
evidence before implementing this as a routine classroom practice. The
form that this reading should take and the levels and types of text that
should form the focus of this reading remain to be documented in exper-
imental studies. Particular areas in which this research could be particu-
larly illuminating pertain to whether independent reading can be
designed and implemented to ensure features of effective vocabulary in-
struction identified by the Panel and summarized in Table 1.1. For ex-
ample, can independent reading contexts enhance the active
engagement in learning tasks that the Panel found to characterize effec-
tive vocabulary learning (#5, Table 1.1)? Does independent reading
provide the repeated and multiple exposures to vocabulary (#2, Table
1.1)? Can computer technology be used in ways that improve the efficacy
of independent reading (#6, Table 1.1)?

1 . THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF VOCABULARY

OVERVIEW OF THE VOLUME

As is evident in the scholarship reviewed in this chapter, the relationship
between vocabulary and literacy is impossible to separate. To be literate
necessitates and supports a rich vocabulary. The work in this volume
brings together the work of scholars whose goal it is to have vocabulary
experiences that support conceptual learning and comprehension of
text. Even during the past two decades when vocabulary research has
been limited (RAND Reading Study Group, 2002), these scholars have
continued to examine how best to support vocabulary and comprehen-
sion. In particular, many of these scholars are considering the nature of
vocabulary learning in relation to the diversity that is present in many
current-day classrooms.

We have organized this research into three sections that can help the ed-
ucators who read this book to frame policies and practices. Our intention
was to write this for educators who are responsible for educational policy
and practice, whether at a regional, state, county, or district level.

Part I develops the rationale. To begin school reform, the rationale for
initiating or eliminating instruction and content needs to be understood by
participants. Nagy (chapter 2) reviews the rationale for a comprehensive
and long-term vocabulary program. Without understanding the manner in
which vocabulary develops, it is unlikely that vocabulary will be given either
the priority or the kind of attention required to develop the foundational
vocabularies children need. The relationship between vocabulary and liter-
acy is a unique one, as we have developed in this chapter. Cunningham
(chapter 3) and Scott (chapter 4) describe in detail the manner in which vo-
cabulary is extended through text. Scott’s chapter addresses a research lit-
erature that has not been considered carefully in the recent creation of
school reading programs — the characteristics of texts in which words are
(or are not) learned.

Part II addresses the manner in which instruction is implemented. The
section begins with Stahl’s comprehensive presentation (chapter 5) of how
different kinds of words need to be treated and what constitutes the varied,
rich methods for knowing words that the National Reading Panel (NICHD,
2000) described. This overview is followed by four chapters that describe
specific vocabulary treatments. In each case, the researchers have designed
instruction for a specific group of students and tested its effectiveness.

The chapters by Calderon and colleagues (chapter 6) and by Carlo and
colleagues (chapter 7) describe a vocabulary treatment with students
whose first language is Spanish. This instruction is illustrative of the alter-
native stance described earlier in the chapter, where knowledge of Span-
ish is used as a linguistic resource in becoming more adept at reading
literary and academic English.

KAMIL AND HIEBERT

The two subsequent chapters present instructional interventions at two
ends of the developmental continuum. Schwanenflugel and colleagues
(chapter 8) describe a program that aims to build a foundation for children
during their most fertile language learning years — in preschool. Baumann
and colleagues (chapter 9) describe the kind of instruction that supports
students in the middle grades and beyond. To read the many rare words
that occur in different content area texts and in literature, students require
strategies and skills in the manner in which affixes affect root word mean-
ing. Readers of these texts also need to make use of context for those rare
words that are central to these texts. Baumann et al. describe a program in
which knowledge of both semantic families and context are developed.

There was a dilemma about whether Part III should be aligned with the
first — the role of curriculum, or what words to teach. We decided to put it at the
end because it integrates the issues of learning and of instruction. It is also the
area in which the least amount of work has often been done. We believe it to be
a good ending point. Without addressing domains of words that we wish stu-
dents to get good at, selecting the texts that they read and designing lessons
around these texts will be difficult. It also indicates the point that has been least
studied — and the cutting edge. It is likely the most challenging of issues.

Concluding this volume with the topic of what words to teach demonstrates
that techniques have been validated (NICHD, 2000) but a substantia]
amount of research continues to be needed. By the same token, as is evident
in the chapters in this book and the report of the National Reading Panel
(NICHD, 2000), much is known about the need for strong vocabulary in-
struction and the features of such instruction. If the goal of higher levels of
comprehension is to be achieved, then vocabulary instruction requires in-
tensive and extensive attention.

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PERSPECTIVES ON HOW
VOCABULARY IS LEARNED

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Chapter

Why Vocabulary Instruction Needs
to Be Long-Term and
Comprehensive

William Nagy
Seattle Pacific University

Of the many benefits of having a large vocabulary, none is more valuable
than the positive contribution that vocabulary size makes to reading compre-
hension. One of the main goals of vocabulary instruction, therefore, is to help
students improve their comprehension. This choice of goals is important be-
cause of its implications for both the content and the methods of instruction.
If the goal were to teach words in a way that would improve students’ perfor-
mance on multiple-choice vocabulary tests, the goal could be achieved
through many simple and relatively undemanding methods. However, if the
goal is to teach words in a way that will improve students’ comprehension of
text that contains these words, the methods become more labor- and time-in-
tensive (McKeown, Beck, Omanson, & Pople, 1985).

We already know a fair amount about what kind of vocabulary instruction
is most effective for improving reading comprehension (e.g., Stahl, 1986;
Stahl 8c Fairbanks, 1986). However, the relationship between vocabulary
knowledge and reading comprehension is complex (e.g., Anderson &
Freebody, 1981; RAND Reading Study Group, 2002). If instruction is to
further the goal of improved comprehension, we need to take into account
the complexities of this relationship. Indeed, every wrinkle in the vocabu-
lary-comprehension relationship suggests something about what might
make vocabulary instruction more effective for the purpose of promoting

NAGY

reading comprehension. This chapter discusses specific examples of com-
plexity in the vocabulary-comprehension relationship and explores some
of the implications of these complexities for instruction.

WHAT DOES A LONG-TERM COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH
TO PROMOTING VOCABULARY GROWTH LOOK LIKE?

I begin with a description of the basic features of long-term, comprehensive
instruction, the rationale for which I develop in this chapter. Other chap-
ters in this book provide extensive details about what effective vocabulary
instruction looks like. Only a brief overview is provided here to ensure that
the reader understands the type of instruction for which I am developing a
rationale.

Effective vocabulary instruction is a long-term proposition. Attention to
vocabulary growth has to start early, in preschool, and continue throughout
the school years. Although the exact nature of effective instruction changes
across grade levels, the focus on and commitment to vocabulary instruction
is a sustaining component of schooling. Effective instruction must also be
multifaceted, encompassing: teaching individual words; extensive expo-
sure to rich language, both oral and written; and building generative word
knowledge.

Teaching Individual Words

Teaching individual words is what commonly comes to mind when we talk
about vocabulary instruction. A number of studies have shown that for vo-
cabulary instruction to increase the comprehension of texts that contain the
instructed words, it must be fairly intensive (e.g., McKeown et al., 1985;
Stahl & Fairbanks, 1986). Intensive or rich vocabulary instruction requires
giving students both definitional and contextual information (i.e., informa-
tion about what a word means and about how it is used), and providing them
with opportunities to process this information deeply by applying it in ways
that require creativity and connections with their existing knowledge. Fur-
thermore, a number of instructional encounters — somewhere between 7
and 12 — are necessary if students are to achieve real ownership of the in-
structed words (Stahl, 1986).

The kind of vocabulary instruction that can demonstrably increase read-
ing comprehension is thus rather labor intensive. Only a portion of the
words that students need to learn can be covered with such instruction.
Some words must necessarily be dealt with more superficially, although
there is little research that documents under what conditions less intensive
instruction would be effective. But to promote the large-scale, long-term
vocabulary growth that is necessary for academic success, we need to do

2. WHY INSTRUCTION NEEDS TO BE LONG-TERM

more than teach individual words. This brings us to the other two compo-
nents of effective vocabulary instruction, extensive exposure to rich lan-
guage and building generative word knowledge.

Exposure to Rich Language

Extensive exposure to both oral and written language is likewise essential to
effective instruction. Wide reading, in my opinion, is the primary engine
that drives vocabulary growth for older and more able readers. However for
younger and for less able readers, experiences with rich oral language are
critical for vocabulary growth (Beck & McKeown, 1991; Beck, McKeown, &
Kucan, 2002; Biemiller, 1999). Therefore, if they are to have any chance of
acquiring sufficient vocabulary knowledge to get meaning from text, their
teachers must make effective use of classroom activities such as reading
aloud, storytelling, pretend play, and even routine classroom conversa-
tions, to promote oral vocabulary growth.

The need for exposure to rich language is especially acute for older, less
able readers — students who tend to have limited vocabularies. It is unlikely
that these students will (or can) read widely enough to make a difference to
their vocabulary growth. Although increasing such students’ ability and mo-
tivation to read is essential, teachers must also find ways to use oral lan-
guage as a means of increasing their vocabularies. Effective use of
discussion is perhaps the most important tool, but reading aloud to older
students should not be ruled out.

Many researchers believe that a substantial proportion of vocabulary
growth occurs as children gradually learn the meanings of new words
through repeated encounters with the words in text or in conversation. A
review of the research on learning words from context indicates that the
chances of learning the meaning of a particular word after encountering it
once in context are relatively low, somewhere around 15% (Swanborn & de
Glopper, 1999). Exposure to rich language is essential for promoting vo-
cabulary growth, but the benefits of such exposure accumulate slowly.

Generative Word Knowledge

Generative word knowledge is vocabulary knowledge that can transfer to
the learning of new words. There is a tendency to think of vocabulary knowl-
edge as consisting of isolated, memorized information about the meanings
of specific words, but such a conception is clearly inadequate. A variety of
types of knowledge about words contributes to word learning. Most obvi-
ously, there are word-learning strategies, such as the use of context and
word parts, that can be taught to students to make them better word learn-
ers (e.g., Edwards, Font, Baumann, & Boland, 2004). Effective word learn-

NAGY

ers also possess knowledge about what constitutes a possible word meaning,
which helps them distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information
in the context (Nagy &Gentner, 1990; Nagy & Scott, 1990). A number of re-
searchers have argued for the importance of word consciousness in word
learning. I interpret the term word consciousness broadly, to include a in-
terest in and awareness of various aspects of words — their meanings, their
histories, relationships with otherwords, word parts, and most importantly,
the way writers use words effectively to communicate (Blachowicz & Fisher,
2004; Graves & Watts-Taffe, 2002; Johnson, Johnson, & Schlichting, 2004;
Scott & Nagy, 2004).

An effective approach to vocabulary instruction should address all three
of these components — teaching individual words, exposure to rich lan-
guage, and generative word knowledge (Graves, 2000). And in fact there
are a number of instructional interventions that attempt to do so. For exam-
ple, Beck and McKeown’s Text Talk is a very promising example of a com-
prehensive approach to vocabulary growth for younger students (Beck &
McKeown, 2001; McKeown & Beck, 2003; see also Beck, McKeown, &
Kucan, chapter 10, this book). Likewise, the Vocabulary Enrichment Pro-
gram described by Foorman, Seals, Anthony, and Pollard-Duradola (2003)
is a comprehensive approach, as is the instructional program described in
chapter 7 of this book by Carlo, August, and Snow.

The goal of this chapter, however, is not to describe programs of effective
instruction but to provide a rationale for these programs. This rationale is
predicated on the idea that when we understand the causal links between
vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension, it changes how we
think about vocabulary instruction. A good place to begin is by examining
several hypotheses that have been proposed previously about these causal
links.

CAUSAL LINKS UNDERLYING

THE VOCABULARY-COMPREHENSION RELATIONSHIP

Vocabulary knowledge is correlated with reading comprehension, with the
correlations tending to be around .6 to .7 (Anderson & Freebody, 1981).
However, the existence of a correlation does not tell us anything specific
about the nature, or the direction, of the causal relationships that may un-
derlie it.

The Instrumentalist Hypothesis

The commonsense model of the relationship between vocabulary knowl-
edge and reading comprehension is that knowing more words makes some-
one a better reader. That is, there is a causal connection between vocabulary

2. WHY INSTRUCTION NEEDS TO BE LONG-TERM

size and the ability to comprehend text. Anderson and Freebody (1981) la-
beled this model the instrumentalist hypothesis.

One might wonder why this is called a hypothesis. It is obviously true — just
try to read a text that contains a lot of words that you do not know. Indeed, a
number of studies have demonstrated that teaching words can improve com-
prehension (Beck & McKeown, 1991; Stahl & Fairbanks, 1986).

The instrumentalist hypothesis seems perfectly reasonable until we real-
ize that the correlation between vocabulary and comprehension might be
the result of other factors.

The problem with the instrumentalist hypothesis is not that it is wrong,
but that it is incomplete (and hence misleading, if one takes it to be the
whole picture).

The Knowledge Hypothesis

As one alternative to the instrumentalist hypothesis, Anderson and Freebody
(1981) also proposed the knowledge hypothesis, which emphasizes the role
of readers’ background knowledge in comprehension. Simply put, it is not
knowing the meanings of words that causes readers to understand what they
read; rather, knowing the meanings of words is an indication of the readers’
knowledge of a topic or concept. It is this knowledge that helps readers com-
prehend. This hypothesis can be illustrated by the following scenario:

Imagine that you have students read a passage about baseball and, after
the reading, test their comprehension of the passage. Prior to their reading
of the text, however, you had also given them a vocabulary test that contains
baseball terminology not used in the passage. Think about the relationship
between the scores on this vocabulary test and the passage comprehension
test. Would you expect them to be correlated? Yes, because students who
know more about baseball, and therefore know its special vocabulary, are
likely to better understand a passage about baseball. The fact that the exact
words from the vocabulary test were not in the comprehension passage does
not matter. Knowledge about baseball is essential, and knowledge of spe-
cific baseball words is part of, and symptomatic of, that knowledge. But it is
not just knowing the words that is essential for comprehension. It is know-
ing the concepts and their relationships. According to the knowledge hy-
pothesis, then, there is a causal link from knowledge to comprehension,
and vocabulary knowledge is only one small part of the knowledge base that
contributes to reading comprehension.

The Aptitude Hypothesis

The aptitude hypothesis offers yet another account of the correlation be-
tween vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. One reason that

NAGY

two variables may be correlated is that some third variable is linked causally
to both of them. People who are 5 feet tall tend (in the majority of cases, at
least) to know more than people who are 3 feet tall. This is not because be-
ing tall makes people knowledgeable, nor because knowing things makes
people tall, but because getting older (at least within a certain age range)
tends to increase both height and knowledge.

The aptitude hypothesis suggests that people who have large vocabularies
are better at understanding what they read because a third factor affects both
vocabulary and comprehension, this third factor having something to do
with verbal aptitude. For example, because having high verbal IQs makes for
better readers and better word learners, people who have high verbal IQs
would tend both to understand text better and to have acquired large vocabu-
laries. Furthermore, this relationship could be true, at least in theory, even if
no direct causal connection exists between vocabulary and comprehension.
Most second graders, for example, might have acquired all of their vocabu-
lary knowledge through oral language rather than through reading. Yet
their vocabulary size would still be correlated with their reading comprehen-
sion because the verbal abilities that make some children better word learn-
ers would also make them better comprehenders.

Specific versions of the aptitude hypothesis can be formulated, depending
on the particular ability or abilities that are thought to make an especially im-
portant contribution to the vocabulary-comprehension relationship. Stern-
berg and Powell (1983), for example, suggest that the ability to make
inferences is important both for reading comprehension and for learning the
meanings of new words that readers encounter as they read.

I suggest a slightly different spin on the aptitude hypothesis, which could
be called the metalinguistic hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, part
of the correlation between tests of vocabulary knowledge and reading com-
prehension is due to the fact that both require metalinguistic aware-
ness — that is, the ability to reflect on and manipulate language. Indeed,
vocabulary learning can be a very metalinguistically demanding task (Nagy
& Scott, 2000). Vocabulary instruction requires students to think about
words and their meanings in relatively abstract ways.

Likewise, reading comprehension, in part, is also a metalinguistically de-
manding task. Written language is typically decontextualized. Unlike con-
versation, relatively few clues exist outside the language itself that aid us in
constructing meaning. In conversation, we have intonation, gesture, facial
expressions, the ability to ask questions when necessaiy, a shared physical
environment, and, most of the time, large amounts of shared knowledge
that can be alluded to rather than stated explicitly. To take part in a conver-
sation successfully, we have to attend to all these potential sources of infor-
mation. When reading, however, we are dependent on the text itself. When
comprehension breaks down, we must be able to reflect on the language of

2. WHY INSTRUCTION NEEDS TO BE LONG-TERM

the text if we want to make sense of it. Strategies for comprehension moni-
toring and repair almost invariably require some type of metalinguistic
ability. Recognizing that we do not understand a passage because we do not
know the meaning of a word, for example, involves metalinguistic as well as
metacognitive skill.

The metalinguistic hypothesis, then, explains part of the correlation be-
tween vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension by appealing to
the fact that vocabulary tests, like reading comprehension tests, are tests of
the ability to deal with decontextualized language, and both are therefore
dependent on metalinguistic skill.

The Access Hypothesis

The basic point of the access hypothesis (Mezynski, 1 983) is that to be useful
in comprehension, the words students are taught must become known well
enough that they can be accessed quickly and easily. In other words, com-
prehension depends on depth of word knowledge as well as breadth. Of
course, depth and breadth of word knowledge are correlated; people who
know more words tend as well to know more about each of the words they
know. As they read, they are able to come up with the correct meanings of
words quickly, and it is this fluency that contributes most directly to their
reading comprehension.

As Anderson and Freebody (1981) pointed out, these hypotheses are not
mutually exclusive, and all are likely to be at least part of the truth. The
problem arises in trying to determine their relative contribution to the vo-
cabulary-comprehension correlation. The situation is further complicated,
of course, by the fact that the relative contribution of these three hypotheses
may be dependent on the particular combination of reader, text, and pur-
pose for reading. For example, if I am an adult reading an article about a
topic with which I am familiar but in a language that I do not know very well,
my lack of vocabulary knowledge will be the primary source of my difficulty
in understanding the text, thus making the instrumentalist hypothesis the
best account of my comprehension problems. However, if I were to learn
that language a little better, and then read an article in that language on a
topic with which I am very familiar, the knowledge hypothesis might be a
good explanation for the fact that my comprehension is much greater than
would be expected on the basis of my linguistic competence.

RECIPROCAL LINKS BETWEEN VOCABULARY
AND READING COMPREHENSION

Assuming that these hypotheses are all at least partly true, together they
form a somewhat complex picture of the causal relationships between vo-

NAGY

cabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. However, there is yet
more potential complexity to the vocabulary-comprehension relationship.
Two additional aspects to this complexity to consider are (a) reciprocal links
between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension and (b) indi-
rect links between the two.

The hypotheses discussed so far involved models in which the causal
links between vocabulary and reading comprehension only go in one direc-
tion. This is, of course, an oversimplification. There is every reason to be-
lieve that the causal relationship between vocabulary knowledge and
reading comprehension is reciprocal — it goes in both directions. Having a
big vocabulary does contribute to being a better reader. But being a good
reader also contributes to having a bigger vocabulary. One of the main rea-
sons is that better readers do a lot more reading (Anderson, Wilson, &
Fielding, 1988), and therefore have many more opportunities to learn new
words. Hence, the amount of reading a person does plays an important role
in the reciprocal relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading
comprehension (see Fig. 2.1).

FIG. 2.1. A reciprocal model of vocabulary and reading comprehension.

2. WHY INSTRUCTION NEEDS TO BE LONG-TERM

Stanovich (1986) used vocabulary growth as an example of his
well-known Matthew effects. The rich tend to get richer. Students with
larger vocabularies understand text better and so they read more. As they
read more, they learn additional words, which makes their vocabularies
even larger. Conversely, the poor tend to get poorer. Students with smaller
vocabularies do not understand text as well, and as a consequence are likely
to read less. The less they read, the less their vocabulary growth. Over time,
the gap between less successful and more successful students can widen.

A breakdown anywhere in this cycle affects the entire process and turns it
into a truly vicious cycle. For example, if students have trouble decoding,
they will read less and gain less vocabulary knowledge. Or if a student can
decode well, but does not have access to reading materials, the same nega-
tive trend can occur.

Both positive and negative effects of the cycle spread and become general-
ized over time. Students who read less end up, not just with smaller vocabu-
laries, but with less knowledge on all the topics that better students have been
reading about in their spare time. In addition, they fall behind in fluency be-
cause they have less practice in reading. Thus, in the graphic shown in Fig.
2.1, the circle containing the word “Vocabulary” should also contain all the
other kinds of knowledge that can be gained by reading. By fifth grade, a stu-
dent with a limited vocabulary has more than just a vocabulary problem. Be-
cause of years of less exposure to text, such a student also has acquired less
decoding skill, less fluency, and less of the various kinds of knowledge one
gains through reading. Teaching this student all the difficult words in a text
will not bring her or him to the same point as a student who has a larger vo-
cabulary because the student with the larger vocabulary also has all of the
benefits that come from the experiences that accompany vocabulary growth.

INDIRECT CAUSAL LINKS BETWEEN VOCABULARY
KNOWLEDGE AND READING COMPREHENSION

Indirect causal links pose another kind of complexity in the vocabu-
lary-comprehension relationship. That is, vocabulary knowledge may have
an impact on other abilities, which in turn contribute to reading compre-
hension. One such possible indirect link involves metalinguistic awareness.
Evidence indicates that vocabulary knowledge may contribute to some
types of metalinguistic awareness, which, in turn, can contribute to reading
comprehension, either directly or indirectly, through the contribution of
metalinguistic awareness to word recognition. Another possible indirect
link involves the impact of vocabulary knowledge on word recognition.

Figure 2.2 shows a generic schema of how vocabulary knowledge and
metalinguistic awareness might be related to each other and to reading
comprehension:

NAGY

Vocabulary

knowledge

Reading

comprehension

Metalinguistic

awareness

FIG. 2.2. Some hypothesized causal links between metalinguistic awareness, vocabu-
lary knowledge, word recognition, and reading comprehension.

• Vocabulary knowledge contributes to metalinguistic awareness.

• Metalinguistic awareness contributes to word recognition.

• Vocabulary also may contribute to word recognition.

• Metalinguistic awareness may contribute to reading comprehension
through means other than enhancing word recognition.

• Most if not all of these relationships may be reciprocal (hence the
two-headed arrows).

To the extent that this picture is valid, vocabulary contributes both di-
rectly and indirectly to reading comprehension.

Some evidence indicates, for example, that vocabulary knowledge con-
tributes to phonological awareness. The more words children know, the
more likely they are to be analytic in their representation of the sounds of
those words. This relationship is supported by several studies (e.g.,
Fowler, 1991; Gathercole, Hitch, Service, & Martin, 1997; Goswami,
2001; Metsala, 1999; Metsala & Walley, 1998). Phonemic awareness, in
turn, has an impact on word recognition (Ehri, Nunes, Willows, Schuster,
Yaghoub-Zadeh, & Shanahan, 2001), which ultimately contributes to
reading fluency and comprehension.

It also appears that vocabulary may contribute to knowledge about print,
and hence to word recognition. Dickinson, McCabe, Anastopoulos,

2. WHY INSTRUCTION NEEDS TO BE LONG-TERM

Peisner-Feinberg, and Poe (2003) examined the emerging literacy knowl-
edge of Head Start children, using an instrument called the Emergent Lit-
eracy Profile. This profile primarily reflects knowledge about print, a
precursor to word recognition. The researchers were particularly inter-
ested in the effects of two independent variables: phonological awareness
(as measured by the Early Phonological Awareness profile) and receptive
vocabulary (as measured by the PPVT). A key finding of the study is that
both vocabulary and phonological awareness made significant independ-
ent contributions to the literacy measure. Thus, vocabulary knowledge ap-
pears to make a direct contribution to word recognition, above and beyond
any effect it may have via phonemic awareness.

Dickinson et al. (2003) report another very interesting finding concern-
ing the relationship of vocabulary knowledge and phonological awareness:
For students who had limited phonological awareness, vocabulary was not
related to early literacy. For students who had normal phonological aware-
ness, vocabulary was linked to early literacy. Conversely, for students who
had small vocabularies, phonological awareness was not related to early lit-
eracy. For students with more normal vocabularies, phonological aware-
ness was linked to early literacy.

This may be a bit hard to visualize, so let me say it another way: If students’
vocabularies are too small, phonological awareness does not contribute to
their knowledge about print. If students’ levels of phonological awareness are
too low, vocabulary does not contribute to their knowledge about print. In
other words, the extent to which phonological awareness contributes to
knowledge about print depends on vocabulary and vice versa.

The point is that each of these variables functions as a necessary but not
sufficient condition. Students need to have a certain level of vocabulary
knowledge for phonological awareness to be of any benefit to them in learn-
ing to read, and they need to have a certain level of phonological awareness
for vocabulary knowledge to be of any benefit in learning to read. Each ele-
ment makes a contribution, but it may be a necessary ingredient for the oth-
ers to function as well.

In a study conducted with colleagues at the University of Washington
(Nagy, Berninger, Abbott, Vaughn, & Vermeulen, 2003), we likewise found
that for second graders at risk for failure in reading, oral vocabulary made a
significant, unique contribution to word recognition, even when ortho-
graphic, phonological, and morphological factors had been statistically
controlled for. We also found that morphological awareness made a signifi-
cant, unique contribution to reading comprehension, above and beyond
that of vocabulary. These findings and those of Dickinson et al. (2003) thus
provide evidence for the two diagonal lines in Fig. 2.2.

It should be noted that the indirect links between vocabulary knowledge
and reading comprehension just discussed are also likely to involve recipro-

NAGY

cal relationships. In particular, the relationship between vocabulary and
morphological awareness is likely to go both ways: Knowing more words
gives us more opportunities to become aware of relationships among words
that share meaningful parts, and awareness of morphology should facilitate
our learning of words that are related to others by prefixation, suffixation,
or compounding.

IMPLICATIONS FOR INSTRUCTION

As the preceding discussion was intended to demonstrate, the causal links
underlying the vocabulary-comprehension relationship are relatively com-
plex. The instrumentalist, knowledge, aptitude, and access hypotheses
each focus on a different aspect of this complexity. The possibility of recip-
rocal and indirect links between vocabulary knowledge and reading com-
prehension further complicates the picture. As already noted, these
hypotheses are not mutually exclusive. All have at least some plausibility,
and in some cases, empirical support.

To the extent that vocabulary instruction is motivated by the causal rela-
tionship between vocabulary and reading comprehension, we have to take
the complexity of this relationship into account when we think about what
constitutes effective vocabulary instruction. In the remainder of this chap-
ter, I briefly sketch some implications of the picture of the vocabulary-com-
prehension relationship that I outlined.

The Instrumentalist Hypothesis

According to instrumentalist hypothesis, word knowledge contributes di-
rectly to reading comprehension; therefore, to improve comprehension,
vocabulary should be taught. However, the fact that the instrumentalist hy-
pothesis is only one causal connection in a complex network of causal links
also has important implications. Vocabulary interventions are usually car-
ried out with the expectation that a successful intervention will impact com-
prehension. Despite some successes, however, the impact of vocabulary
interventions on standardized measures of reading comprehension has
been sporadic, and even when there is an effect, it is generally not sizeable.

The fact that the instrumentalist hypothesis is only one part of a larger,
more complex picture should lead us to have more modest expectations
about what a vocabulary intervention can produce in terms of gains in com-
prehension. The expectation that a short-term vocabulary intervention,
whatever its quality, will produce large improvements in reading compre-
hension is simply not realistic.

This is not to say that vocabulary interventions are not worthwhile, or
that they should not be expected to impact comprehension positively. But,

2. WHY INSTRUCTION NEEDS TO BE LONG-TERM

as I hope the following sections make clearer, the complexity and reciprocal
nature of the vocabulary-comprehension connection makes it much more
likely that effects of vocabulary instruction will tend to be long-term and cu-
mulative, rather than short-term and dramatic. The remaining hypotheses
also tell us more specifically what effective vocabulary instruction should
look like.

The Knowledge Hypothesis

The knowledge hypothesis implies that word meanings do not exist in isola-
tion; rather, they are part of larger knowledge structures. As a result, it is
not just word knowledge alone, but word knowledge combined with world
knowledge that enables improved comprehension. For instruction to affect
comprehension, therefore, vocabulary should be taught in conjunction
with concepts and content. One of the attributes of effective vocabulary in-
struction identified by Stahl (1986), and exemplified in the rich vocabulary
instruction developed by Beck and her colleagues (e.g., Beck et al., 2002), is
making connections between the instructed words and students’ prior
knowledge and experiences.

The Aptitude Hypothesis

The instructional implications of the aptitude hypothesis vary, depending
on the specific version that is used. In the version proposed by Sternberg
and Powell (1983), the implication is that students should receive instruc-
tion that helps them infer the meanings of new words.

Two recent reviews of research on teaching students to infer the mean-
ings of new words (Fukkink & de Glopper, 1998; Kuhn & Stahl, 1998) have
indicated that such instruction, in fact, can help students learn the mean-
ings of new words. An impact on comprehension of such instruction has not
been demonstrated (Baumann, Edwards, Boland, Olejnik, & Kame’enui,
2003). I suggest, however, that the implication of the aptitude hypothesis is
that strategies for word learning and strategies for comprehension should
not be taught separately. Some successful comprehension strategy pack-
ages have a component that addresses unknown words — for example, the
“clarification” component of reciprocal teaching (Palincsar & Brown,
1984), or the “clunk” component of Collaborative Strategic Reading
(Klinger & Vaughn, 1999).

The implication from the metalinguistic hypothesis is that having a large
vocabulary and doing well on vocabulary tests is associated with being able to
talk and think about language and, in particular, about word meanings. The
implication for vocabulary instruction is that such instruction should aim not

NAGY

just at teaching new words, but at helping students learn to talk and think
about language. That is, effective vocabulary instruction should promote
word consciousness (Graves & Watts-Taffe, 2002; Scott 8c Nagy, 2004). Like-
wise, vocabulary instruction, especially for younger children, should aim at
increasing children’s facility with decontextualized language (McKeown &
Beck, 2003), which depends heavily on metalinguistic awareness.

The Access Hypothesis

The instructional implication of the hypothesis is that words (some words,
at least) need to be taught thoroughly. McKeown et al. (1985) indicate that
students need to encounter a word as many as 1 2 times before they know it
well enough to improve their comprehension. This suggests that for vocab-
ulary instruction to be most effective, it must not only introduce important
vocabulary words, but provide ways for students to solidify their under-
standing of the words by seeing and using them multiple times.

The Reciprocal Hypothesis

What are the instructional implications of a reciprocal relationship between
vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension? One obvious implica-
tion is to start some form of vocabulary instruction as early as possible. The
causal relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading compre-
hension starts early, before children are reading connected text. Thus, the
correlation between vocabulary and reading comprehension for fifth grad-
ers is notjust a matter of how much these students know about the meanings
of the words in the text they are tested on. It reflects a long history of mutual
facilitation between vocabulary knowledge, reading comprehension, and a
variety of other literacy-related abilities. If the goal is to increase children’s
reading comprehension by teaching them vocabulary, it helps to start work-
ing on their vocabularies when they are in preschool.

The overriding implication of the reciprocal hypothesis, however, is the
need to develop comprehensive literacy programs. “Balanced” is too weak a
word because it implies that there are only two sides to be balanced. But in
the cycle of learning that leads to vocabulary and comprehension growth, it
is crucial to support students at each point in the cycle. Figure 2.3 illustrates
some of the ways to make sure that each part of the cycle is functioning.

Indirect Links Between Vocabulary and Comprehension

I have argued that vocabulary knowledge also may have an indirect impact
on reading comprehension through its relationship with morphological

2. WHY INSTRUCTION NEEDS TO BE LONG-TERM

Teaching individual
words, exposure to rich
oral language,
generative word
knowledge...

Time to read,
fluency,
motivation,
matching kids
w/texts...

Comprehension

strategies,

building

background

knowledge,

decoding

accuracy &

fluency...

FIG. 2.3 . Some instructional implications of a reciprocal model of vocabulary and read-
ing comprehension.

awareness, phonological awareness, and word recognition. One instruc-
tional implication of such links is that the impact of vocabulary knowledge
on literacy begins very early. Hence there is all the more reason for early at-
tention to vocabulary instruction. The indirect links via morphological
awareness also provide evidence for the importance of instruction on pre-
fixes, roots, and suffixes (e.g., Graves, 2004).

CONCLUSION

In this chapter, I have tried to illustrate some of the complexity of the causal
links between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. My main

NAGY

purpose has been to argue that this complexity constitutes a powerful ratio-
nale for rich and multifaceted vocabulary instruction. Such instruction has
to start early and must be kept up over the years, although what constitutes
effective instruction changes with grade level. It must increase students’
generative word knowledge, as well as their knowledge of individual words.
It must include increased exposure to rich oral language as well as wide
reading, and it must be part of, and integrated into, a comprehensive liter-
acy curriculum

Effective vocabulary instruction includes components that might look
like frills to some: spending valuable instructional time on building word
consciousness, helping students to identify morphological and semantic re-
lationships among words, increasing their sensitivity to words with multiple
meanings and to contextual variations in meanings.

My intent has been to give some reasons why these things are not frills;
they are essential components of effective instruction. No one component is
sufficient by itself, but each is important. We still need to figure out exactly
how to combine the components in ways that create the most engaging and
cognitively challenging instruction for all our students. However, we al-
ready know enough to do better than we are often doing, especially for our
youngest and our most vulnerable students.

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Graves, M., & Watts-Taffe, S. (2002). The role of word consciousness in a re-
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Chapter

Vocabulary Growth Through

Independent Reading

and Reading Aloud to Children

Anne E. Cunningham

University of California, Berkeley

A young child sits quietly reading a storybook. The book tells the story of a little boy ’s ad-
ventures on a very snowy day. The child reads, “He pretended he was a mountain-
climber. He climbed up a great big tcdl heaping mountain of snow — and slid all the
way down. ” The child pauses in reading to think about what he just read. He rereads
the words "pretended” "mountain-climber,” “climbed,” “heaping,” and “slid.” He
takes a minute to look at the pictures and consider the meaning of these words before
reading on, “He picked up a handful of snow — and another and still another. He
packed it r ound and firm and put the snowball in his pocket for tomorrow. Then he
went into his warm house. ’’Again the child stops to consider a few more unfamiliar
words: “handful, ” and “firm, ” and he notices that he has never seen the word “packed ”
used in this way before. After deciding that he understands what the little boy is doing,
he continues to read.

— From A Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats

As this child struggles to read the text, he encounters many new words.
These are words for which he may or may not know the meaning. Yet in or-
der to comprehend the text, the child is forced to learn the meaning of the
unfamiliar words and incorporate them into his lexicon.

The situation described is not unique. Children are constantly learning
the meaning of words through their encounters with text. Vocabulary in-

CUNNINGHAM

strucdon also plays a central role in vocabulary growth in school-age chil-
dren (e.g., Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002). However, across the life span,
most researchers would agree that the bulk of vocabulary growth occurs inci-
dentally through exposure to language. This process of vocabulary acquisi-
tion occurs via two primary mechanisms: exposure to oral language and to
written language. This chapter discusses how exposure to written language
(i.e., print) contributes to children’s vocabulary development.

LEARNING VOCABULARY THROUGH EXPOSURE
TO LANGUAGE

The process of learning new words begins in infancy and continues
throughout one’s adult life. It has been estimated that an 18-month-old
child needs to learn an average of 5 new words a day in order to have an av-
erage vocabulary of approximately 8,000 words by the time he or she is 6
years old (Senechal & Cornell, 1993). The average student graduating from
high school is estimated to know approximately 40,000 words (Nagy &
Herman, 1985). In order to increase one’s vocabulary from 8,000 to 40,000
in those 12 years, a child needs to learn a total of approximately 32,000
words between 1 st grade and 1 2th grade, which translates to approximately
7 words a day. The research suggests that children typically learn approxi-
mately 3 ,000 words a year (over 8 words a day) between 3rd and 1 2th grades
during the school year (Nagy & Anderson, 1984). On reflection, that seems
like a lot of words each year.

These impressive statistics leave us wondering where our children are
learning all of these words. Recent research suggests there is a developmen-
tal trajectory to vocabulary learning (Biemiller, 2001) and that when in-
struction exploits the morphophonemic nature of our orthography,
children can acquire a multiplicity of word meanings (e.g., magic yields
knowledge of magician, magical, magically) through direct and systematic
vocabulary instruction (Beck, McKeown, & McCaslin, 1983). However,
when we consider that the average program of direct vocabulary instruction
covers only a few hundred words and word parts per year, this type of vocab-
ulary development just described seems to be beyond the scope of even the
most intensive vocabulary instruction programs (Hiebert, chapter 12, this
volume; Nagy & Herman, 1985). Even the most tailored and comprehen-
sive instruction cannot shoulder all of the vocabulary learning that must
take place in the school years and beyond. Thus, the argument is made that
a substantial amount of vocabulary development occurs through incidental
encounters with language (Sternberg, 1987). Not surprisingly, a conver-
gent body of evidence supports this conclusion.

Much of the research investigating the role of incidental learning in vo-
cabulary development has focused on words encountered in the context of

3. VOCABULARY GROWTH THROUGH READING

reading. For example, Nagy, Herman, and Anderson (1985) attempted to
determine the amount of knowledge children acquire about unfamiliar
words during natural reading. They asked 57 eighth-grade students to
read one of two excerpts (approximately 1,000 words) taken from a ju-
nior-high-level text. The students then completed a multiple-choice vo-
cabulary test assessing their knowledge of 15 target words from the
passage they read and 15 words from the alternative text. The multi-
ple-choice test was designed to assess the amount or degree of knowledge
about a word. Students were also asked to participate in an individual in-
terview aimed at determining partial word knowledge. Results indicated
that children made small but statistically reliable gains in word knowledge
after reading words in context. Similar patterns have been found by Stahl
(1999) and Sternberg & Powell (1983).

McKeown (1985) also investigated the process by which children ac-
quire unfamiliar word meanings through exposure to written language.
She argued that various cognitive functions underlie vocabulary learning
and, as a result, children of high and low verbal ability experience varying
levels of success in the process of acquiring word meaning from context. In
order to test this hypothesis, McKeown (1985) assessed the ability of 30
fifth-grade children (15 high vocabulary ability, 15 low vocabulary ability)
to derive the meaning of unfamiliar words from context by presenting
them with 6 artificial words embedded in multiple sentences with varying
levels of contextual support. Indeed, high vocabulary children were more
successful in deriving the meaning of an unknown word from text and us-
ing the new word in subsequent contexts. In contrast, children of low ver-
bal ability experienced a misunderstanding of the relationship between
words and context and demonstrated a semantic interference when con-
sidering two contexts simultaneously. McKeown’s ( 1 985) work, along with
the work of other researchers (e.g., Daneman & Green, 1986; Sternberg &
Powell, 1983), demonstrates that there are certain conditions underwhich
reading promotes vocabulary learning.

Nagy, Anderson, and Herman (1987) argued that although it may be true
that general verbal ability is associated with the process of successfully deriv-
ing the meaning of unfamiliar words, it is unclear to what extent ability affects
the volume of learning from context that occurs during normal reading. In
order to more fully investigate the nature of incidental word learning and the
role of ability, Nagy et al. (1987) conducted a study with 352 third-, fifth-, and
seventh-grade children with varying levels of cognitive ability. Similar to
their previous study (i.e., Nagy et al., 1985), Nagy et al. (1987) investigated
the ability to learn unfamiliar word meanings in the context of natural read-
ing. Contrary to the work of McKeown (1985) and others, Nagy et al. (1987)
found no effects of ability on learning from context. In fact, they explored the
interactions of ability and learning from context using several different abil-

CUNNINGHAM

ity measures including standardized reading comprehension scores, stan-
dardized vocabulary scores, measures of decoding skill, and facility with
morphology, and found no significant interactions. In addition, they found
that children across all age groups made gains in word knowledge from the
use of context. They concluded that although it might be true that children of
high ability are better able to derive word meaning from context on a general
level, in normal reading of real text, as words occur over a wide range of diffi-
culty and familiarity, there is something there for everyone to learn. “If chil-
dren are given texts they can comprehend, they will gain some knowledge
about the meaning of some unfamiliar words” (Nagy et ak, 1987, p. 263). In
other words, children of all ages and abilities are able to learn words inciden-
tally through encounters with written language. We have found this in our re-
search examining the cognitive correlates of reading volume (e.g.,
Cunningham & Stanovich, 1997).

Although children of all ages and abilities may be able to learn words
through context, there are certain conditions that facilitate the process of
incidental word learning. Based on their research program, Anderson and
Nagy (1992) provide a summary of their conclusions about the conditions
that facilitate word learning. In general, their work has led them to the con-
clusion that — assuming only one exposure to an unfamiliar word — the
overall probability that a child will learn a word while reading is about 1 in
20 (i.e., for every 20 unfamiliar words encountered, a child will learn 1
word). Although this number may seem small, its magnitude is clear when
one considers the amount of unfamiliar words read by the average child in a
year’s time. For example, the average fifth grader reads approximately one
million words of text a year and approximately 2% (i.e., 20,000) of those
words are “unfamiliar” to the child (Anderson & Freebody, 1983; Anderson
& Nagy, 1992). If 1 out of every 20 of those unfamiliar words is incorporated
into the child’s lexicon, then the average fifth grader learns approximately
1,000 words a year through reading.

However, as mentioned, certain conditions dramatically facilitate the
ability to derive word meanings. For example, the difficulty of the text and
the child’s level of comprehension have a dramatic influence on the likeli-
hood that a child will derive the meaning of an unfamiliar word. In fact, a
child is twice as likely to learn an unfamiliar word when reading a narrative
text that is matched to his level of comprehension, whereas it is less likely
that a child will learn an unfamiliar word when the text is a difficult exposi-
tion (Anderson 8c Nagy, 1992). The ease with which a word is learned from
text is also a function of the word’s conceptual difficulty (e.g., it may be eas-
ier to determine the meaning of the word “participate” than the word “pho-
tosynthesis”), the informativeness of the context, the number of times the
word is encountered, and the importance of the unknown word for compre-

3. VOCABULARY GROWTH THROUGH READING

hending the surrounding context (Anderson & Nagy, 1992; Nagy &
Herman, 1985; Sternberg, 1987; Sternberg & Powell, 1983).

VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION

A large body of research provides overwhelming evidence that a substantial
amount of vocabulary development occurs as a result of incidental encoun-
ters with language. This is not to suggest, however, that direct instruction of
vocabulary does not play an important role. There is great value in the type
of conceptual and word-by-word instruction that should take place in class-
rooms. For example, as pointed out by Anderson & Nagy (1992), there are
precise words that children may need to know in order to comprehend par-
ticular lessons or subject matter. Waiting for children to encounter the word
in natural reading (and hoping that the word is the 1 word in 20 actually
learned) is far less efficient than teaching the words through direct and sys-
tematic vocabulary instruction. Moreover, the context in which unfamiliar
words are embedded can sometimes be uninformative or even misleading,
causing children to misinterpret word meanings (Beck et al., 1983). Alter-
natively, direct vocabulary instruction allows the teacher to control the con-
text in which the word or word parts are introduced, ensures the presen-
tation of the intended definition of the word, and provides control over the
number of times the child is exposed to the word (Beck et ah, 1983; Nagy &
Herman, 1985). Therefore, direct instruction can provide an important
foundation for future exposure to words in context (Beck, Perfetti, &
McKeown, 1982; Nagy & Herman, 1985).

The work just summarized does, however, suggest the need for a shift in
the focus of programs of direct instruction. It indicates that it might be use-
ful to consider programs that provide less intensive coverage of larger num-
bers of unfamiliar words, coupled with increased opportunities to read and
encounter words in a meaningful context (Nagy & Herman, 1985). An al-
ternative method proposed by Anderson & Nagy (1992) would be to de-
velop the “word consciousness” of students by instructing them in the ways
that word parts contribute to word meanings. In this approach, children are
encouraged to treat an unknown word as an opportunity for problem solv-
ing. Children are taught word relationships and families in an attempt to
increase their ability to do independent word analysis and derive the mean-
ing of unfamiliar words in text. In other words, the natural redundancies in
the English language serve to contribute to vocabulary growth. In this re-
gard, a child who knows the meaning of the word “magic” would be empow-
ered to derive the meaning of the unfamiliar words "magician” and
“magical.” Other proposed methods of effective vocabulary instruction
have also been informed by the research suggesting that a significant

CUNNINGHAM

amount of word learning occurs incidentally through encounters with
words in written text. That is, in order to be effective, programs of vocabu-
lary instruction should simulate the type of word learning that occurs dur-
ing natural reading (Stahl, 1999) and should focus on words that occur with
substantial frequency in written language but are less commonly used in
speech (Cunningham & Stanovich, 2003; Hiebert, chapter 1 2, this volume).

THE CASE FOR WRITTEN LANGUAGE

An important distinction must be made, however, regarding the quality of
language exposure children receive. One such distinction lies in the com-
parison between written and oral language. For example, it has been sug-
gested in the literature that the opportunities for incidental vocabulary
learning that occur via exposure to language, and specifically between
oral and written language, are essentially equivalent. Smith (1989) as-
serted, “What they read and write may make people smarter, but so will
any activity that engages the mind, including interesting conversation” (p.
354). In many ways, this seems to be a reasonable proposition. However,
an interesting (and illuminating) body of research comparing the relative
frequencies of oral and written language suggests otherwise. These analy-
ses demonstrate that the lexical density of oral language relative to written
language is substantially degraded or impoverished, and indicate that
text is a particularly effective way of expanding a child’s vocabulary com-
pared to “interesting conversation.”

Hayes and Ahrens ( 1 988) analyzed the statistical distribution of words in
several different categories of oral and written language. They analyzed
printed texts including abstracts of scientific articles, newspapers, maga-
zines, adult books, children’s books, and preschool books as well as oral lan-
guage that included the scripts of prime-time adult and children’s
television shows, educational television, expert witness testimony, and col-
lege graduates’ conversations with friends and spouses. The words used in
these different contexts were ranked according to their frequency of occur-
rence in the English language. The most common words are lower in num-
ber and the most rare numbers are higher in number. For example, the
word “the” is ranked 1, the word “it” is ranked 10, the word “know” is
ranked 100, and the word “occurrence” is ranked 86,000. For purposes of
comparison, the researchers considered a word with a rank lower than
10,000 to be “rare.” By this definition, a “rare” word is one that is outside of
the vocabulary of a fourth to sixth grader.

In general, Hayes and Ahrens (1988) found that when compared to writ-
ten language, speech contains far fewer rare or unique words. For example,
the text of a child’s book uses more rare words than does any kind of oral
language except courtroom testimony. Yet, even in the special situation of

3. VOCABULARY GROWTH THROUGH READING

expert witness testimony, the rarity of words used was substantially lower
than those found in the text of popular magazines, newspapers, or abstracts
of scientific articles. These observable differences between oral and WTitten
language have notable implications for vocabulary development. Namely, a
child is far more likely to encounter a word outside of his current vocabulary
while reading than while watching television or engaging in interesting
conversation with a college-educated adult (Corson, 1 995; Hayes & Ahrens,
1988). Table 3.1 provides an illustration of some of the differences ob-
served between the various contexts.

The differences between oral and written language are easily understood
and explainable when one considers the different demands and character-
istics of the two forms of communication. For example, as Hayes (1988)
pointed out, speech and writing normally occur under different time con-
straints. There are certain time pressures associated with natural conversa-
tion that are eliminated when communicating via waiting. Speakers must
respond quickly and fluently in order to maintain the flow of dialogue or

TABLE 3.1

Selected Statistics for Major Sources of Spoken and Written Language

Rank of Median Words Rare Words per 1000

I. Printed texts

Abstracts of scientific articles

4389

128.0

Newspapers

1690

68.3

Popular Magazines

1399

65.7

Adult books

1058

52.7

Comic books

867

53.5

Children’s books

627

30.9

Preschool books

578

16.3

II. Television texts

Popular prime-time adult shows

490

22.7

Popular prime-time children’s shows

543

20.2

Cartoon shows

598

30.8

Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street

413

2.0

III. Adult speech

Expert witness testimony

1008

28.4

College graduates to friends, spouses

496

17.3

Note. Adapted from Hayes & Ahrens (1988) in Cunningham & Stanovich ( 1998 ).

CUNNINGHAM

they may be competing for “control of the floor.” As a result, speakers must
access words very quickly. Access to words in our productive and receptive
vocabularies is largely dependent on the word’s relative frequency. The less
common the word, the longer it takes to retrieve the word from memory
(Marshalek, Lohman, & Snow, 1981). Who has not searched their lexicon
for the “right” word only to substitute a simpler or more common one to
keep the conversation flowing? As a result, conversation relies heavily on
the use of common words. By contrast, in writing there is far more time to
search one’s vocabulary (or thesaurus or dictionary) for the most appropri-
ate, precise, and communicative words. This typically results in the use of
rare or less common words in writing.

Baines (1996) provides a clear and compelling example of this type of
“lexical pruning” (Stanovich, 2000) that occurs between written language
and speech in his comparison of movie scripts and their books of origin.
Conducting a simple word analysis of all the words found in both forms
(script and text) reveals the general tendency to reduce the complexity of
words used in speech. For example, in an analysis of the book To Kill a Mock-
ingbird, Baines (1996) illustrates that while the written text of the book uses
thirteen “U” words including up, upstairs, uncrossed, us, upon, unhitched, un-
painted, under, use, until, undress, used, and unique, the script uses fewer, only
seven “U” words: ugly, under, until, up, upstairs, us, and used. This general
trend is demonstrated by Baines (1996) for numerous letters in the alpha-
bet across multiple texts and scripts.

Another obvious difference between oral and written language is the
amount of contextual information available to the communicants. It is
well known that speech is a more contextualized form of communication
than writing. Whereas speech often relies on a variety of nonverbal and
contextual clues, written communication must use explicit references in
order to ensure comprehension. The result is the use of more common
words in oral language than in written language. For example, if a child
saw a weathervane on top of a barn during a car ride in the country, oral
communication might lead to the following interaction: The child points
to the object and asks, “What’s that on top of there?” The mother looks to
where the child is pointing and responds, “That’s something farmers use
to show the way the wind blows.” In fact, the word “weathervane” is not
even necessary to respond to the child’s question. Alternatively, if the
child encountered a picture of a weathervane while reading a storybook,
the text below the picture might read, “Atop the dilapidated red barn sat
an old-fashioned weathervane used by the farmer to determine the direc-
tion of the wind.” The latter example includes far more explicit and de-
scriptive words, which are necessary to direct the child’s attention to the
object being described in text.

3. VOCABULARY GROWTH THROUGH READING

Given the apparent differences in lexical richness between oral and writ-
ten language and the resulting differences in opportunities to encounter
new words, it is important to consider the different ways that children are
exposed to written language. The primary sources of exposure occur via
shared and independent reading experiences. The next section focuses on
the role of oral reading and independent reading as mechanisms for vocab-
ulary development and growth.

THE CONTRIBUTION OF READING ALOUD
TO VOCABULARY GROWTH

In order for encounters with language to increase a child’s vocabulary, the
child must be exposed to words that are outside of his or her current lexi-
con. However, the limits of children’s reading abilities often make it diffi-
cult to find text that is challenging enough to expand their vocabulary, yet
does not exceed the limits of their word recognition and decoding abilities.
As a result, novel words are commonly introduced to children via shared
reading or “read-alouds.” As argued earlier, text provides a different layer
of exposure that can support vocabulary growth due to its inherent aca-
demic or decontextualized language.

Reading aloud to children, especially preschool and kindergarten age
children, has long been viewed as an important aspect of encouraging lan-
guage and literacy development (Adams, 1990; Baker, Scher, & Mackler,
1997). In fact, it has been argued that reading aloud to children is the most
important activity for developing the knowledge that is necessary to suc-
ceed in reading (Baker et al., 1997). Early and frequent opportunities to in-
teract with written text and language prior to schooling are thought to aid
in the development of skills that serve as the foundation for learning con-
ventional reading and writing. Due to concerns over the increasingly large
differences among children in vocabulary and reading comprehension
abilities as they begin school, shared storybook reading has become the fo-
cus of a large body of empirical research. Specifically, research has sought
to answer the following questions: What aspects of shared storybook read-
ing enhance children’s language development? Does shared storybook
reading lead to vocabulary growth?

The work of several different researchers has suggested that parents and
teachers read to children in qualitatively different ways and that these dif-
ferences may have appreciable influences on the amount of resulting lan-
guage development (e.g., Beck & McKeown, 2001; Heath, 1983; Ninio,
1980; Snow, 1983). Much of this research was based on the idea that active
participation on behalf of the child is necessary for shared book reading to
be effective. For example, Whitehust et al. (1988) investigated the effects of

CUNNINGHAM

a 1 -month intervention program designed to optimize parental reading of
picture books on the language development of children between 2 1 and 35
months of age. The researchers divided 30 child-parent dyads into two
groups. In the control group, the parents were informed about the merits of
reading aloud to children and were instructed to audiotape their regular
reading sessions with their child three or four times a week. The other
group of parents were given the same instructions, but were also given ex-
plicit directions regarding the manner in which they were supposed to read
to their child. These parents participated in two 25-30 minute training ses-
sions that instructed them on effective ways to read to their child (e.g., the
use of open-ended questions, function/attribute questions, and questions
that require verbal responses as opposed to pointing, as well as appropriate
ways to respond to children’s answers). Following the intervention, children
in both groups were assessed using standardized assessments of verbal ex-
pressive abilities and vocabulary. Whitehurst et al. (1988) found that chil-
dren in the experimental group scored significantly higher than children in
the control group on measures of expressive (but not receptive) language
ability. Furthermore, an analysis of the audio-recorded reading sessions re-
vealed that children in the experimental group had higher mean length of
utterance, a higher frequency of phrases, and a lower frequency of single
words. The researchers concluded that variations in shared storybook read-
ing can have notable effects on language development.

Other researchers have subsequently sought to examine the specific be-
haviors or aspects of shared story book reading that lead to vocabulary devel-
opment. For example, Senechal & Cornell (1993) investigated whether a
single reading of a storybook was sufficient to produce vocabulary' growth,
and whether participation was necessary in producing that growth. They
read a story to 80 four-year-olds and 80 five-year-olds. The passage con-
tained 1 0 target words known to be unfamiliar to young children. Four differ-
ent reading conditions were used, representing a continuum of levels of
participation on behalf of the children. In some conditions the book was read
verbatim, whereas in other groups the vocabulary words were repeated, chil-
dren were asked questions about the story, or the new vocabulary words intro-
duced were recast. Immediately following the reading and then 1 week later,
the children were administered a test designed to assess their expressive and
receptive knowledge of the target words. Results indicated that the two age
groups were equal in their ability to recognize words immediately following
the reading. Flowever, at the 1-week follow-up, the older children remem-
bered more of the vocabulary words. Although the single reading appeared
to contribute substantially to receptive vocabulary growth, it was not suffi-
cient in enhancing expressive vocabulary. Interestingly, it was also found that
the reading was effective in enhancing receptive vocabulary development re-
gardless of the amount of participation required of the children. In other

3. VOCABULARY GROWTH THROUGH READING

words, in contrast to Whitehurst et al. (1988), receptive vocabulary learning
(not expressive) was robust after a single storybook reading regardless of the
level of participation on behalf of the child.

Senechal (1997) made an effort to reconcile the contradictory findings of
previous work and to extend our understanding of the effects of book read-
ing behaviors and the role of multiple versus single exposures to story-
books. She investigated the effect of single storybook reading, repeated
storybook reading, and questioning (repeated reading and labeling of tar-
get items with novel words) on acquisition of expressive and receptive vo-
cabulary in 60 children age 3 and 4. As in the earlier study by Senechal &
Cornell (1993), stories contained 10 target words that would be unfamiliar
to the children but represented concepts known to the children. Children
in the single-reading condition were pretested for receptive knowledge of
target words, read the text verbatim, and then were posttested for expres-
sive and receptive knowledge of the target words. In the repeated-reading
and questioning condition, the procedure consisted of two sessions. In the
first session, children were pretested for their receptive knowledge of the
target words, and then read the storybook twice. In the repeated-reading
condition, the text was read verbatim, and in the questioning condition, the
reader asked “what or where questions” after reading each of the target
words. In the questioning condition, if the child did not include the vocabu-
lary word in his or her response, he or she was prompted to do so or the
reader labeled the target word. The second repeated-reading and ques-
tioning session occurred on the following day. Children were read the story
for a third time and then posttested for expressive and receptive vocabu-
lary. Senechal (1997) found that listening to repeated readings of a story fa-
cilitated children’s expressive and receptive vocabulary growth. In
addition, she found that active participation was more helpful in the acqui-
sition of expressive rather than receptive vocabulary.

Taking a fine-grained approach, these studies have sought to clarify
which dimensions of book reading are most effective in promoting vocabu-
lary growth. It appears that although a single reading may be sufficient in
leading to receptive vocabulary development, multiple exposures are nec-
essary for the development of expressive vocabulary. Moreover, the results
collectively indicate that listening may be sufficient in the development of
receptive vocabulary, but that active participation in reading is a prerequi-
site for the development of expressive vocabulary.

Robbins & Ehri (1994) also helped to clarify the role of storybook read-
ing on vocabulary development. Specifically, they sought to determine: (a)
whether exposure to target words in the context of shared book reading
would, in fact, improve children’s knowledge of the words over control
words, (b) whether increasing exposure to target words would result in
greater learning, and (c) whether children’s general vocabulary knowledge

CUNNINGHAM

would be related to the gains in vocabulary resulting from storybook read-
ing. In order to address these issues, they recruited 38 kindergarten stu-
dents from a public elementary school. They selected nonreaders (in order
to ensure that gains in vocabulary were attributable to hearing the words in
a story and not reading the words in print) who were unfamiliar with the ex-
perimental texts and scored within one standard deviation below the mean
or two standard deviations above the mean on the standardized measure of
vocabulary. The children were then divided into three ability groups based
on their general vocabulary abilities and were read one of two stories con-
taining 1 1 target words. The target words occurred one or two times in each
story. The story was heard on two occasions and no word meanings were dis-
cussed. Children were then given a vocabulary test assessing their knowl-
edge of the 1 1 target words in the story they heard, as well as their
knowledge of the 1 1 target words in the story they did not hear. Results in-
dicated that children recognized the meanings of significantly more vocab-
ulary words from the story that they were exposed to than the story to which
they were not exposed. In addition, they found that gains in vocabulary
were greater for children with larger entering vocabularies and that four
exposures to words were necessary but not sufficient for higher rates of
word learning. This research provided clarification regarding the specific
manner in which words are learned through shared storybook reading and
provided converging evidence for the general finding that book reading is
a potent mechanism in the acquisition of vocabulary.

READING ALOUD TO INDEPENDENT READERS

The research described thus far has investigated the value of shared book
reading (i.e., reading aloud to them) for children who were not yet capable
of reading independently. However, there is reason to believe that even af-
ter acquiring the ability to read independently, children still benefit from
listening to text read aloud. For example, Elley (1989) examined the effects
of teacher-directed storybook reading on vocabulary acquisition in 7- and
8-year-old students. Similar to the studies previously described, children
were read a text containing target words and were given pre and posttests of
vocabulary knowledge. The frequency of the target word in the text varied,
as did the redundancy in the surrounding context and the degree to which
the word was depicted by illustrations. Whereas the conditions used in the
study of the 7-year-olds required no participation and provided no expla-
nation, the study of the 8-year-old children included varying levels of par-
ticipation and explanation provided by the teacher. Elley ( 1 989) found that
7- and 8-year-olds showed vocabulary gains of 15% after hearing a story on
three different occasions with no required participation or teacher explana-
tion. In addition, 8-year-olds demonstrated gains of 40% when explanation

3. VOCABULARY GROWTH THROUGH READING

accompanied the story. Overall, word learning was found to be largely a
function of word frequency, depiction of the word in illustrations, and re-
dundancy in surrounding context.

One potential limitation of the research described thus far is the fact that
all studies report on the vocabulary learning that results from book reading
in the context of controlled experiments. Although these experiments ad-
dress some of the causal hypotheses that are put forth in the literature, they
do not inform us as to the incidental growth of vocabulary during read-
alouds. Senechal, LeFevre, Hudson, and Lawson (1996) attempted to ad-
dress this concern by investigating the contribution of assessed book read-
ing to vocabulary knowledge in a more naturalistic manner. The
researchers based their work on the assumption that parent and child
knowledge of storybooks and children’s authors would serve as an index of
the frequency of shared reading. This assumption was based on the earlier
work of other researchers demonstrating that knowledge of book titles and
authors is highly indicative of reading volume or engagement in young chil-
dren and adults (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1990, 1991; Stanovich &
Cunningham, 1993; Stanovich & West, 1989). Thus, Senechal et al. (1996)
examined whether parent and child knowledge of storybooks was related to
children’s performance on standardized measures of vocabulary. Interest-
ingly, they found that even after controlling for children’s analytic intelli-
gence, parental exposure to adult reading material, and parents’ level of
education, knowledge of books (or level of print exposure) explained
unique and independent variance in children’s performance on measures
of receptive vocabulary. Moreover, children’s knowledge of books was pre-
dictive of receptive and expressive vocabulary after controlling for parental
print exposure and socioeconomic factors. In other words, convergent re-
sults are found both across experimental studies and in more naturalistic
circumstances.

The benefits of reading aloud or shared book reading have been found
across a wide array of studies that also included special populations. For ex-
ample, research has demonstrated positive effects of shared reading with
children who have limited vocabularies or language delays (Crain-Thoreson,
Dale, & Philip, 1999; Hargrave & Senechal, 2000) and among economically
disadvantaged children (Dickinson & Smith, 1994; Wasik & Bond, 2001;
Whitehurst, Arnold, Epstein, Angell, Smith, 8c Fischel, 1994).

Collectively, the findings described here help to clarify the role of book
reading behaviors and their effect on vocabulary' growth. These studies be-
gin to provide an empirical basis for some of the commonsensical sugges-
tions and policy that educators have promoted regarding reading aloud to
children. Overall, the results suggest that shared book reading is an impor-
tant and independent mechanism in the development of vocabulary in
young children.

CUNNINGHAM

THE CONTRIBUTION OF INDEPENDENT READING
TO VOCABULARY GROWTH

As discussed, the large differences in lexical richness between speech, cou-
pled with individual differences in exposure to literacy, are a major source
of variation in vocabulary development. Although a portion of the variabil-
ity in exposure to text is a result of shared book reading, as children grow
and mature into readers, a second mechanism contributes to differential
growth in this area. Simply put, some children’s vocabularies increase expo-
nentially due to the fact that they read much more than others.

Children display vast differences in their amount of independent read-
ing. Although not a substitute for direct and explicit instruction in reading,
independent reading increases reading ability and is a particularly potent
mechanism of increasing language skills. We can reliably attribute some of
the differences we observe in vocabulary development among school-age
children to their level of reading volume.

Stanovich (1986, 1993, 2000; Stanovich & Cunningham, 1992) has em-
phasized the dramatic differences in the amount of reading individuals
choose to engage in and has pointed out that these differences can be ob-
served even within a generally literate society among individuals with simi-
lar levels of reading ability and education. As an example. Table 3.2

TABLE 3.2

Variation in Amount of Independent Reading

Percentile

Independent Reading Minutes Per Day

Words Read Per Year

65.0

4,358,000

21.1

1,823,000

14.2

1,146,000

9.6

622,000

6.5

432,000

4.6

282,000

3.2

200,000

1.3

106,000

0.7

21,000

0.1

8,000

0.0

Note. Adapted from Anderson, Wilson, and Fielding (1988) in Cunningham &
Stanovich, 1998.

3. VOCABULARY GROWTH THROUGH READING

presents the data from a study conducted by Anderson, Wilson, and
Fielding (1988) investigating the ways that fifth-grade students spend their
time outside of school. Based on daily diaries that the children completed
over a period of several months, the investigators estimated the number of
minutes per day that children spent engaged in reading and nonreading
activities. They found that an average child (i.e., a child whose reading ac-
tivity placed him or her at the 50th percentile) read only 4.6 minutes per
day; however, this is over six times as much as a child at the 20th percentile,
who read less than 1 minute daily. In yet another example, the child at the
80th percentile was reading 14.2 minutes daily — over 20 times as much as
the child at the 20th percentile. Surely these dramatic differences in expo-
sure to text must result in corresponding differences in vocabulary growth.

Anderson et al. (1988) estimated the children’s reading rates and used
these, in conjunction with the amount of reading in minutes per day, to ex-
trapolate a figure for the number of words that the children at various per-
centiles were reading in a year’s time. These figures, presented in the far
right of Table 3.2, illustrate the enormous differences in word exposure
that are generated by children’s differential preferences toward reading.
For example, the average child at the 90th percentile in reading volume
reads almost 2 'A million words per year outside of school, over 46 times
more words than the child at the 10th percentile, who is exposed to just
51,000 words outside of school during a year’s time. Or, to put it another
way, the entire year’s out-of-school exposure for the child at the 10th per-
centile amounts to just 8 days reading for the child at the 90th percentile.
These differences, combined with the lexical richness of print, act to create
large vocabulary differences among children.

EXAMINING THE CONSEQUENCES OF DIFFERENTIAL
DEGREES OF READING VOLUME

Although there are clear theoretical reasons to speculate that these differ-
ences in reading volume may result in specific cognitive consequences in
domains like vocabulary, it is necessary to demonstrate that these effects are
genuine. In our research, we have sought empirical evidence for the specific
facilitative effects of reading volume — effects that do not simply result from
the higher cognitive abilities and skills of the more avid reader. Although
there are considerable differences in the amount of reading that children
engage in within the classroom (Allington, 1 984), it is likely that differences
in out- of-school reading volume are an even more powerful source of
rich-get-richer and poor-get-poorer achievement patterns (Anderson et
al., 1988; Stanovich, 1986, 2000). As a research group, we have tried to ex-
amine the unique contribution that independent or out-of-school reading
makes toward reading ability, aspects of verbal intelligence, and general

CUNNINGHAM

knowledge about the world. In order to effectively examine the role of read-
ing volume with respect to these cognitive skills, it was necessary to develop
a method for assessing reading volume. Therefore, one aspect of our re-
search program involved the development of such a measure. The measure
of reading volume designed and pioneered by our research group
(Cunningham & Stanovich, 1990; Stanovich & West, 1989) has some nota-
ble advantages in investigations of this kind.

In all, we developed two measures of adults’ reading volume and one
measure of children’s reading volume. Briefly, the children’s measure, the
Title Recognition Test (TRT), requires children to identify the titles of pop-
ular children’s books from a list of titles. The list includes equal numbers of
titles of real children’s books and foils or made-up titles. This task is easy to
administer to large numbers of children, it does not make significant cogni-
tive demands, and its results are reliable — it is not possible for children to
distort their responses toward what they perceive as socially desirable an-
swers. Because the number of wrong answers can be counted against cor-
rected ones, it is possible to remove the effects of guessing from the results
(see Cunningham 8c Stanovich, 1990, 1991; Stanovich & West, 1989 for a
full description of these instruments and a discussion of the logic behind
them). The adults’ measures, named the Author Recognition Test (ART)
and Magazine Recognition Test (MRT), have the same task requirements
and are described fully in Stanovich and West (1989).

The titles appearing on the various title recognition tests were selected
from a sample of book titles generated in pilot investigations by groups of
children ranging in age from second grade through high school. In select-
ing the items that appear on any one version of the TRT, an attempt was
made to choose titles that were not prominent parts of classroom reading
activities in these particular schools. Because we wanted the TRT to probe
out-of-school rather than school-directed reading, an attempt was made to
choose titles that were not used in the school curriculum.

Although a score on the TRT is not an absolute measure of children’s
reading volume and literacy experiences, it does provide us with an index
of the relative differences in reading volume. This index enables us to in-
vestigate the effects that reading volume (rather than general reading
comprehension and word decoding ability) has on intelligence, vocabu-
lary, spelling, and children’s general knowledge. In short, it enables us to
ask: Does reading shape the quality of the lexicon? Does it influence vo-
cabulary growth?

Because it could be argued that an observed relationship between
reading volume and vocabulary or general knowledge might be ac-
counted for by a mutual relationship between each of the two variables
with a third, more salient variable (e.g., general intellectual ability), our
research in this area (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1990, 1991,1997, 2003;

3. VOCABULARY GROWTH THROUGH READING

Stanovich & Cunningham, 1992,1993; Stanovich & West, 1989) has re-
lied on the use of a powerful statistical technique known as hierarchical
multiple regression (see Stanovich and Cunningham, 2004, for a discus-
sion of the methodological uses of this procedure). We have found that,
even when performance is statistically equated for reading comprehen-
sion and general ability, reading volume is still a very powerful predictor
of vocabulary and knowledge differences. Thus, we believe that reading
volume is not simply an indirect indicator of ability, it is a separable and
independent source of cognitive differences.

READING VOLUME AS A CONTRIBUTOR TO GROWTH
IN VERBAL SKILLS

In several studies, we attempted to link children’s reading volume to spe-
cific cognitive outcomes after controlling for relevant general abilities such
as IQ. For example, in a study of fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade children
(Cunningham & Stanovich, 1991), we examined whether reading volume
provides a unique and independent contribution to differences in vocabu-
lary development. We employed multiple measures of vocabulary and con-
trolled for the effects of age and intelligence. We also controlled for the
effects of decoding, another specific ability that may be more closely linked
to vocabulary acquisition mechanisms. There are numerous reasons to sus-
pect that decoding skill might mediate a relationship between reading vol-
ume and a variable like vocabulary size. High levels of decoding skill, which
clearly contribute to greater reading volume, might provide relatively com-
plete verbal contexts for the induction of word meanings during reading.
Thus, reading volume and vocabulary might be spuriously linked via their
connection with decoding ability: Good decoders read a lot and have the
best context available for inferring new words. This spurious linkage was
controlled by statistically controlling for decoding ability prior to investi-
gating reading volume. But we found that even after accounting for general
intelligence and decoding ability, reading volume contributed significantly
and independently to vocabulary knowledge in fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-
grade children. These findings demonstrate that reading volume, although
clearly a consequence of reading ability, is a significant contributor to the
development of other aspects of verbal intelligence.

These results were replicated by additional research that utilized even
more stringent tests of the contribution of reading volume to verbal skills
in a study of college students (Stanovich & Cunningham, 1992). In this
study, we removed the contributions of general intelligence and various
aspects of reading ability including reading comprehension. Because there
is substantial reason to believe that avid reading leads to increased read-
ing comprehension, we statistically removed some of the variance that

CUNNINGHAM

rightfully belonged to reading volume and, therefore, performed a partic-
ularly stringent assessment of the relationship between reading volume
and cognitive abilities. Even so, it was found that the amount of variation
in print exposure or independent reading contributed significantly and
substantially to multiple measures of vocabulary knowledge. We maintain
that the conservative nature of these analyses only attests to the potency
and strength of reading volume.

In another study of nearly 300 college-age students, we found similar re-
sults for the influence of reading volume on vocabulary' knowledge
(Stanovich & Cunningham, 1993). We collected data on the students’ gen-
eral ability (i.e., high school grade point average, performance on an intelli-
gence test, and an SAT-type mathematics test), Nelson-Denny Reading
Comprehension, print exposure, and general knowledge (e.g., practical
and cultural information). In this study, we also provided evidence that
reading volume is an independent contributor to the acquisition of domain
knowledge among older students. After the variance associated with gen-
eral cognitive ability and reading comprehension was partialed out, read-
ing volume accounted for a notable portion of the variance in general
knowledge. In fact, not only was print exposure a unique predictor of gen-
eral knowledge, it was a more robust predictor of general knowledge than
the student’s general cognitive ability.

This research is particularly meaningful in consideration of recent theo-
ries of cognitive development suggesting that domain knowledge and vo-
cabulary are a determinant of information processing efficiency (see
Stanovich & Cunningham, 1993). It illustrates the role that environmental
factors such as independent reading can play in the growth of basic cogni-
tive variables such as verbal fluency and vocabulary. Although basic cogni-
tive abilities such as intelligence play a role in vocabulary growth and
acquisition, these effects are mediated by the active participation in text-re-
lated experiences such as independent reading.

Further evidence for the merits of avid reading was provided by a study in
which we illustrated the role that reading volume can play in the growth of vo-
cabulary among a high-school-age population. A group of first-grade chil-
dren who were administered a battery of reading tasks in a previous study
(Stanovich, Cunningham, & Feeman, 1984) were followed up as eleventh
graders. At the time of the 10-year follow-up, they were administered mea-
sures of exposure to print, reading comprehension, vocabulary, and general
knowledge (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1 997). First-grade reading ability was
a strong predictor of all of the eleventh-grade outcomes and remained a sig-
nificant predictor even when measures of cognitive ability were partialed out.
First-grade reading ability (as well as third- and fifth-grade ability) was reli-
ably linked to exposure to print, as assessed in the eleventh grade, even after
eleventh-grade reading comprehension ability was partialed out, indicating

3. VOCABULARY GROWTH THROUGH READING

that the rapid acquisition of reading ability might well help to develop the
lifetime habit of reading, irrespective of the ultimate level of reading com-
prehension ability that the individual attains. Individual differences in expo-
sure to print were found to predict differences in the growth in reading
comprehension ability throughout the elementary grades and thereafter.

Hierarchical regressions analogous to those conducted on the data
from earlier studies were also conducted on the contemporaneous data.
In seven fixed-order, hierarchical multiple regressions, our reading vol-
ume measure was entered into the equation after general ability. As in
previous studies with college students (e.g., Stanovich & Cunningham,
1992), reading volume in 1 1th grade accounted for substantial unique
variance in both vocabulary measures (37.0% and 15.3%, p < .001 and
p < .05, respectively). Thus, reading volume was consistently found to be
a significant predictor of vocabulary knowledge after general ability had
been controlled. All of the relationships in this sample of high school stu-
dents replicated those observed in other studies of college-age students
(e.g., Hall, Chiarello, & Edmondson, 1996; Lewellen, Goldinger, Pisoni,
& Greene, 1993; Stanovich & Cunningham, 1992, 1993). By conducting
a longitudinal study, our analyses have provided us with a glimpse of the
past literacy experiences of our first-grade sample and yielded some em-
pirical clues to the cause of their subsequent divergences in verbal abili-
ties and general knowledge.

THE RECIPROCAL EFFECTS OF READING VOLUME

Although the research detailed here allowed us to conclude that reading
has positive consequences for the development of various cognitive skills,
it is important to point out that the relationship between these skills and
reading volume is not a one-way, linear relationship. Instead, there is a re-
ciprocal, bidirectional relationship between reading volume and the de-
velopment of cognitive skills such as vocabulary and reading compre-
hension. A child who reads abundantly develops greater reading skills, a
larger vocabulary, and more general knowledge about the world. In re-
turn, they have increased reading comprehension and, therefore, enjoy
more pleasurable reading experiences and are encouraged to read even
more. By contrast, a child who rarely reads is slower in the development of
reading skills and is exposed to fewer new vocabulary words and less infor-
mation about the world. As a result, the child struggles more while reading
and comprehends less of the text. Not surprisingly, this child derives less
enjoyment from reading experiences and is less likely to choose to read in
the future. This trajectory was laid out by Stanovich (1986) and has now
become the well-known phenomenon entitled the “Matthew Effects” in lit-
eracy development. As Stanovich described, these are “educational se-

CUNNINGHAM

quences in which early and efficient acquisition of reading skill yields
faster rates of growth in reading achievement and other cognitive skills
such as vocabulary — that is, rich-get-richer and poor-get-poorer effects”
(Stanovich, 1986, p. 381; Stanovich, 2000; Walberg & Tsai, 1983). Within
this model, independent reading and reading aloud to children may ex-
plain part of the growing disparities we observe among students in lan-
guage, literacy, and cognition.

We now appreciate that early success at reading acquisition is one of the
keys that unlocks a lifetime of reading habits. The subsequent exercise of this
habit serves to further develop reading comprehension ability in an inter-
locking positive feedback logic (Juel, Griffith, & Gough, 1986; Juel, 1988;
Snow, Barnes, Chandler, Goodman, & Hemphill, 1991; Stanovich, 1986,
1993). As the young boy struggles to readd Snowy Day and comprehend the
meaning of the passage, he is building his lexicon through the introduction
of new words such as “heaping” and uses of known words such as “packed it
round and firm.” An optimistic account of our research, and of many of the
studies described in this chapter, is that reading a lot is efficacious regard-
less of the level of a child’s cognitive and reading ability. We do not have to
wait for “prerequisite” abilities to be in place before encouraging independ-
ent reading. Even the child with limited reading and comprehension skills
will build vocabulary and cognitive structures by being encouraged to read.

CONCLUSIONS

In summary, although vocabulary growth can be explained by a multiplic-
ity of factors including general ability (Sternberg, 1987), home environ-
ment and educational background of parents (Hart & Risley, 1 995, 1 999),
and instruction (Beck et al., 2002), there exists an additional avenue to
pursue that will promote vocabulary growth: reading volume. In young
children who cannot read themselves, reading aloud can provide a level of
lexical difficulty that extends beyond everyday conversational language.
When the practice of reading aloud from expository and narrative text is
consistent and coupled with word analysis and discussion between adult
and child(ren), then we can expect vocabulary knowledge to increase.
Moreover, these benefits persist beyond the age when children are capa-
ble of reading independently. Thus, the practice of reading aloud to chil-
dren of all ages in texts 2 to 3 years beyond their own reading level should
be more widely promoted. Lexical items not typical of everyday conversa-
tion are brought to the forefront and, if treated as a point of study, can
promote vocabulary growth. Knowing a word’s meaningpnhr to reading it
in text (and thus not having to guess at its meaning while reading) facili-
tates comprehension and helps to ensure more positive and enjoyable
reading experiences.

3. VOCABULARY GROWTH THROUGH READING

Providing structured read-aloud and discussion sessions and extending
independent reading experiences outside of school hours would help to en-
courage vocabulary growth in children. This educational practice would
have the benefit of also improving reading comprehension and general
knowledge about the world. Although there is no substitute for systematic
and explicit instruction in basic reading skills, ancillary experiences such as
independent reading can support learning to read, as well as reading to
learn. One of the cognitive outcomes of reading engagement and volume is
a richer lexicon. As we search for empirically based methods for reducing
the achievement gap and increasing our students’ vocabulary knowledge,
the educational practice of promoting opportunities for independent,
out-of-school reading should not be overlooked.

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Chapter

Creating Opportunities to Acquire
New Word Meanings From Text’

Judith A. Scott

University of California, Santa Cruz

An accumulation of research indicates that many words are learned inci-
dentally through the independent reading of text, through oral language
discussions, and through reading aloud to children (Elley, 1989; Nagy, An-
derson, & Herman, 1987; Penno, Wilkinson, & Moore, 2002). Even a single
incidental encounter with a word in text can facilitate word learning (Nagy
et al., 1987; Schwanenflugel, Stahl, & McFalls, 1997; Swanborn & de
Glop per, 1999). However, there is also evidence that children are exposed
differentially to infrequent words both in independent reading and in their
homes (Hart & Risley, 1995; Stanovich, 1986). Furthermore, recognition is
increasing of the importance of informational literacy and students’ knowl-
edge of academic language (Duke, 2000; Hirsch, 2003). Every content area
has a set of specific concepts and vocabulary. The National Reading Panel
Report (NICHD, 2000) calls for an increased focus on vocabulary derived
from content area materials. Yet, there appears to be little consensus on
how vocabulary should be presented in informational texts and little regard
given to factors that might facilitate students’ word learning from such texts
(Myerson, Ford, Jones, & Ward, 1991).

This chapter provides a review of research regarding word learning
through text with a discussion of the implications of this research for teach-

Tli is material is based on work partially supported by the National Science Foundation un-
der Award No. ESI-0242733, in connection with the development of the Seeds of Sci-
ence/Roots of Reading Program by the Graduate School of Education and Lawrence Hall of
Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or
recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily re-
flect the views of the National Science Foundation.

SCOTT

ers, publishers, and researchers. It then directs attention specifically to how
this research pertains to the reading, understanding, and learning of new
words from informational text. The intent is to spur discussion and interest
in maximizing the odds that students, particularly those who depend on
schools for exposure to academic language, will be able to read, under-
stand, and learn new words from informational text.

THE COMPLEXITY OF LEARNING NEW WORDS:

THE ROLE OF CONTEXT

The process of learning new vocabulary is often perceived as a reductionist
activity in which words are learned and tested out of context. In the process of
studying vocabulary, researchers often decompose a coherent text to exam-
ine a minute element of the text: its individual words. Decades of research in-
dicate that reading comprehension requires more than knowledge of
individual words (Beck & McKeown, 1991; Nagy 8c Scott, 2000). Reading
comprehension involves the interplay of the reader, the text, the activity, and
the sociocultural context of reading events (RAND Reading Study Group,
2002). In this process, a transaction between the reader and the text must
take place in which prior knowledge and the creation of a mental representa-
tion of meaning play a central role (Anderson & Pearson, 1984). This does
not mean that individual words are unimportant; indeed, words are the cen-
tral building blocks of communication (Clark, 1993). However, in studying
the process of vocabulary acquisition, we need to ensure that we keep the
complexity and transactional nature of the process in mind.

One factor that contributes to the complexity of studying word knowl-
edge is the understanding of what it means to know a word. Knowing a word
can range from being able to supply a definition to having a vague under-
standing of its semantic field. Furthermore, for each known word, there are
numerous related facets of knowledge that are not captured by a typical def-
inition. Definitions reduce word knowledge to decontextualized features,
abstracted from the numerous ways that a word has been used in the past
(Landau, 1984). However, a person’s knowledge about words is expansive
and involves interrelated connections that create networks of knowledge.
Such networks of knowledge can be considered word schemas for words
(Nagy & Scott, 1990). Nation (1990) identified eight separate facets of
knowledge surrounding a word, including knowledge of a word’s spoken
form, its written form, the way it behaves in sentences, words commonly
found near the word, its frequency in oral and written language, its concep-
tual meaning, how and when it is commonly used, and its association with
other words. These different aspects of word knowledge are at least par-
tially independent. Thus, one person may know the definition of a word but
not its frequency or how to use it, whereas another may be able to pro-

4. OPPORTUNITIES TO ACQUIRE NEW WORD MEANINGS

nounce it but unable to distinguish it from similar words. Words are also
polysemous — they often have multiple meanings (i.e., dinner plate vs. home
plate)-, interrelated — one’s knowledge of a given word is not independent
from knowledge of other words (i.e., magma, lava, and volcano)-, and hetero-
geneous — what it means to know a word depends on the kind of word being
learned (i.e., the vs. hypotenuse; Nagy & Scott, 2000).

Vocabulary researchers have long recognized such multiple dimen-
sions of word knowledge. In addition, accumulated evidence indicates
that word meanings are developed incrementally over time (Nagy & Scott,
2000; Schwanenflugel et ah, 1997; Stahl, 2003). There appears to be an
initial “fast mapping” of new words into general categories or associa-
tions, but it takes multiple exposures to a word to build up enough
knowledge to be able to use it comfortably (Clark, 1993). As a word is en-
countered repeatedly over time, information about the word grows and it
moves up the continuum toward “known.” Dale (1965) proposed four lev-
els of word knowledge ranging from “I never saw it before” to “I know it.”
More recently, Paribakht and Wesche (1999) added a fifth level: “I can use
it in a sentence.” This word knowledge may often be subconscious. Adults
have been found to have detectable word knowledge about words they
claimed not to know (Durso & Shore, 1991). To complicate this further, a
person’s continuum of word knowledge is unique. For instance, one per-
son may know that taupe is a color word, but not be able to pick out a taupe
swatch in a paint store. Another may know that a router is some kind of tool,
but not know how it might be used.

Understanding the transactional process of text comprehension, the
complexity of word knowledge, and the incremental process of vocabulary
acquisition has implications for understanding how one acquires informa-
tion about words through the process of reading or hearing text. With this
as a backdrop, I pooled information from studies of incidental learning of
words from independent reading, studies of incidental learning of words
from being read to, and studies on deriving word meanings from text. In
the following review, I have organized the studies into those pertaining to
“local context”— those having to do with factors within words and within
texts — and those pertaining to global factors — those having to do with the
purposes and background knowledge of readers. The purpose of this re-
view is to identify factors that might contribute to vocabulary acquisition
from text and to suggest generalizations that can be used to maximize op-
portunities for students to learn new words from context.

Local Context

Local contexts refer to the features of words and to the context created by
words and sentences within texts. In considering the local context, there are

SCOTT

both within-word factors, such as the morphemes of a word, and the sen-
tences and texts in which a word appears.

Within-Word Factors. A number of features of a word can influence
the attention that readers pay to it as well as the ease with which they re-
member it. Among those features identified by researchers are: (a) mor-
phology, (b) a word’s part of speech, (c) the vividness or concreteness of the
word’s meaning, and (d) frequency of appearance in written English.

When a person encounters a new word, its morphology is one of the main
sources of information available to him or her. Morphemes are the smallest
units of meaning, and “because they serve as phonological, orthographic,
and semantic/syntactic units, they facilitate both word reading and under-
standing of words and texts” (Carlisle, 2003, p. 292). Morphemic analysis
involves the derivation of a word’s meaning by examining and using its
morphological structure, such as word roots, prefixes, suffixes, and in-
flected endings (Edwards, Font, Baumann, & Boland, 2004).

Knowledge of morphology' plays a valuable role in word learning from
context because of the way in which students can use knowledge of a word’s
morphological structure to hypothesize the meaning of a new word. If one
knows that botany relates to the study of plants, and -phobia means “fear of,”
one might hypothesize that botanophobia means “fear of plants” (Nagy &
Scott, 1990). More than 60% of the words students encounter have a rela-
tively transparent morphological structure (Nagy & Anderson, 1984). Stu-
dents can he taught to use both morphological analysis and contextual
analysis to figure out the meanings of new words (Baumann, Edwards, Font,
Tereshinski, Kame’enui, & Olejnik, 2002). Anglin (1993) found that stu-
dents in all grade levels use some morphological problem solving, with rela-
tively large increases in recognizing derived words between third and fifth
grades. The vocabulary knowledge accounted for by derived words repre-
sented, on average, 16% of the recognition vocabulary of first graders, in-
creasing to almost 40% by fifth grade (Anglin, 1993).

The ability to figure out a word’s meaning by analyzing its component
parts has been found to be significantly related to word-reading achieve-
ment (Carlisle, 1995, 2003; Champion, 1997), although instruction in mor-
phological and contextual analysis does not necessarily lead to improved
reading comprehension (Baumann et al., 2002). Many researchers call for
more research in this area, as evidence to date suggests that morphological
awareness is an aspect of learningwords from context that should not be ig-
nored (Carlisle, 2003).

A second within-word factor is a word’s part of speech. It seems intu-
itively obvious that learning nouns would be easer than learning verbs.
Seeing a picture of an aardvark with a brief description of its eating habits
may give a reader enough information to know what it is (an animal) even if

4. OPPORTUNITIES TO ACQUIRE NEW WORD MEANINGS

one does not have extensive background knowledge of African animals. In
comparison, illustration of the meaning of the verb discourage seems much
more difficult. Unfortunately, the research does not seem to support such
an intuitively obvious conclusion.

Instead, the ease with which one learns nouns, verbs, adjectives, or ad-
verbs from context seems to vary across studies, is confounded with con-
creteness of a word, and appears to depend, to a great extent, on the words
chosen to represent each category. There seems to be no clear evidence that
words in one category are learned more easily than words in another. In
some studies, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs were learned more easily than
nouns, whereas in others, nouns were learned more frequently.

Schwanenflugel et al. (1997) found that the part-of-speech category
positively influenced the gain scores with verbs, adjectives, and adverbs
learned more easily than nouns. However, only some nouns in the study
referred to distinct objects (i.e., beacon, sorceress). The others were either
abstract nouns (i.e., vicinity, tribute) or mass nouns (i.e., venom). Robbins
and Ehri (1994) also reported that, although there were too few instances
to generalize, verbs and adjectives were learned more easily than nouns in
their study. On the other hand, Elley (1989) found part of speech to be a
significant factor in the opposite direction during a study of reading aloud
to children. Nouns were learned more easily than other parts of speech,
with mean gain scores of 24% versus 6%. The various findings regarding
part of speech are consistent with Laufer’s (1997) analysis of factors that
affect word learning in a second language. She concluded that part of
speech has no clear effect on learning words from context (Laufer, 1990,
1997). Overall, this factor does not seem to be highly significant when con-
sidering vocabulary acquisition from text. The results regarding the type
of words learned most easily may depend more on the set of words chosen
for a study than on a general factor.

A third feature of a word is its vividness or concreteness. There is substan-
tial evidence that abstract words are harder to understand than words with
concrete or vivid imagery (Schwanenflugel, 1991). In addition,
Schwanenflugel et al. (1997) found that words’ relative concreteness posi-
tively influenced students’ gain scores in incidental word learning, conclud-
ing that individual characteristics of vocabulary words are more important
than text features in determining which words are learned. However,
Laufer (1990, 1997) claims that no such effect holds for second-language
learners because many second-language learners have already developed
abstract concepts in their native language, and the addition of a new label
for a familiar concept is relatively easy.

If the ability to picture a concept is considered as a measure of concrete-
ness, more studies can be included in this discussion. Elley (1989) found a
significant correlation between gain scores and the number of pictorial oc-

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currences, whereas Robbins and Ehri (1994) found no such correlation.
Again, this may be due, at least in part, to the words being illustrated. The
words pictured in the Elley study were not listed, although he indicated
that “a simple count was made” of the number of times a word was pic-
tured. Words in his study included roadster, dingy , lolling, strewn, debonair,
scheming, summoned, spin, outsmarted, redistributed, goner, pizzazz, reform, rap-
scallion, and startling. The words listed as illustrated in the Robbins and
Ehri ( 1 994) study were irate, survey, toting, abode, decrepit, consume, and dis-
card. At this point, it seems safe to say that the concreteness of words is a
factor that needs to be taken into account in research and is worth consid-
eration when publishers and teachers are trying to optimize opportunities
to learn words from context.

The fourth factor — that of frequency — is one that has not been well re-
searched in vocabulary learning from context. When word frequency has
been considered, the effects of substituting rare words with more common
ones has been the focus (e.g., Marks, Doctorow, & Wittrock, 1974; Wittrock,
Marks, 8c Doctorow, 1975). In the past few years, however, levels of word fre-
quency have gained prominence in discussions of vocabulary acquisition.

Several researchers (Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2003; Hiebert, chapter
12, this volume; Nation, 2001) make compelling arguments for considering
word frequency as a factor in choosing words to be taught explicitly in vo-
cabulary programs. Hiebert (in this volume) has used a corpus of 150,000
words (Zeno, Ivens, Millard, & Duwuri, 1995) to identify those that occur
10 or more times per million words of text, and she uses this criterion, in
part, to develop zones of effective instruction. Beck et al. (2003) identify
useful words, or Tier Two words, as those words “likely to appear frequently
in a wide variety of texts and in the written and oral language of mature lan-
guage users” (p. 16), and emphasize instruction on these words. Stahl and
Stahl (2004) identify such words as “Goldilocks” words: words that are not
too hard or too easy but just right. Although Biemiller (chapter 1 1, in this
volume) discounts the use of printed word frequency in identifying words
for instruction, he also expresses the importance of identifying and concen-
trating instruction on words that are “known at 40% to 80% by median chil-
dren at a target grade” (p. 241).

The idea behind all of these measures is not that rare words should not
be taught, but that it is less efficient to teach rare words than words that oc-
cur more commonly in English when developing an overall vocabulary pro-
gram. This is an interesting point in thinking about word meanings that
might be gleaned from texts, although the frequency of words has not been
considered in most studies of learning from context.

Although other word-level factors have been studied, there appears to be
little evidence that factors such as the length of a word or the number of syl-
lables affect word learning from context (Laufer, 1990, 1997; Robbins &

4. OPPORTUNITIES TO ACQUIRE NEW WORD MEANINGS

Ehri, 1994). Baker (1989) did find that younger readers paid more atten-
tion to word length and number of syllables than older readers did, but her
study focused on the evaluation of nonwords rather than learning from con-
text. In all, word length and number of syllables appear to be less important
in determining which words will be learned from context than other factors
identified within this chapter.

Word Presentation in Text. There are also factors that influence a
word’s understanding that have to do with the word’s situation or relation-
ship to other words in a text. Among these factors that have been identified
in the research literature are: (a) helpfulness of the sentence and text con-
text, (b) density of unknown words, and (c) word repetition.

The contexts in which unknown words are presented in text are not always
helpful and, in some cases, can mislead students into making false inferences
about word meanings. For instance, one might think that grudgingly means
“to like or admire” in the sentence: “Every step she takes is so perfect and
graceful,” Ginny said grudgingly (Beck, McKeown, & Caslin, 1983, p. 178).
Beck et al. (1983) identified a continuum of effectiveness of natural contexts
for deriving the meanings of words and found some contexts to be so mis-
leading that only 3% of the responses were correct. Negative learning proba-
bilities have been attributed to misleading contexts within the stories read
aloud to young children, and lack of contextual support hindered high
school students who tried to derive the meaning of rare words in naturally oc-
curring text (Robbins & Ehri, 1994; Schatz & Baldwin, 1986).

Rating of the context’s helpfulness in naturally occurring texts had no
significant effect in a study by Schwanenflugel et al. (1997), although it was
significantly correlated with mean gain in Elley’s study (1989). Manipu-
lating the text to increase word learning has had mixed results. Some stud-
ies indicate that text revised to be more considerate, or to provide more
useful contextual information, can produce significantly higher scores on
measures ofword learning (Gordon, Schumm, Coffland, & Doucette, 1992;
Konopak, 1989). In these studies, fifth-grade through high school students
were able to define more words more accurately when sentences were
changed to convey more complete and explicit conceptual knowledge,
when defining information was placed in close proximity to the unknown
word, and when the clarity of connections between unknown words and
those surrounding them was increased. Diakidoy (1998), however, re-
ported that increased considerateness or the informativeness of local con-
text did not effect word meaning acquisition from context in her study of
sixth-grade students.

It seems plausible that students will learn more when they are given ex-
plicit clues to an unknown word in the surrounding context rather than a
natural, implicit context. Less skilled readers appear to have greater diffi-

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culty accessing word knowledge when the text is less supportive than more
able readers. Among 7- and 8-year-olds, less skilled readers had particular
difficulty inferring the meaning of novel vocabulary when the definitional
information was removed in proximity from the word whose meaning it elu-
cidated (Cain, Oakhill, & Elbro, 2003).

In a secondary analysis of the data collected by Nagy et al. (1987),
Diakidoy and Anderson (1991) concluded:

One thing that is apparent in this study is that factors representing contex-
tual information have contingent rather than independent effects on learn-
ing word meanings from context. That is to say, they appear to interact with
several other factors, and moreover, the type and nature of these interac-
tions may depend on grade level, (p. 10)

A meta-analysis of 20 experimental studies indicates that grade and skill
levels impact word learning from context (Swanborn & de Glopper, 1999),
and perhaps factors such as the considerateness or helpfulness of sentences
surrounding words impact such a finding.

Density of unknown words is another factor that influences the probabil-
ity of learning a word. In the meta-analysis conducted by Swanborn and de
Glopper (1999), text-target word ratio was the one predictor that ex-
plained variance. A high density of unknown words in a text was found to
obstruct incidental word learning. If the density of unknown words in a text
is 1 word per 150 words, the probability of learning the word is reported to
be approximately 30%. However, if the ratio is 1 to 75, the chances of learn-
ing the word drop to 14% (Swanborn & de Glopper, 1999).

In early studies of the effect of vocabulary density and difficulty, Ander-
son and Freebody (1983) replaced content words with more difficult words
and concluded that an increase in rare words leads to lower performance,
although a large proportion of words needed to be changed in order to see
reliable effects. One might conclude from their findings that students can
tolerate a high percentage of rare words.

However, a study by Hu & Nation (2000) indicates that, when English is a
second language, the majority of adult readers were limited in their com-
prehension of text when 5% or more of the text contained unfamiliar words.
This is similar to the rule-of-thumb of reading educators (e.g., Betts, 1946)
that accurate reading of 95%M00% of the words in a text indicates that the
text is easy enough to read independently. Nation (2001) suggests that, in
developing reading materials for English-language learners, 4% or less of
the words should be newly introduced.

For the factor of word repetition, research findings are quite robust. The
repetition of a word supports students’ understanding of it, whether texts
are read aloud to them or are read by students on their own. As McKeown,
Beck, Omanson, and Pople (1985) conclude, “For virtually every instruc-

4. OPPORTUNITIES TO ACQUIRE NEW WORD MEANINGS

tional goal, providing a moderately high number of encounters per word
will yield better outcomes than only several encounters” (p. 534).

When words are repeated in stories read aloud to students, several re-
searchers have found mean gains from pre to posttest scores (Elley, 1989;
Penno et al., 2002; Robbins & Ehri, 1994). Penno et al. (2002) found a lin-
ear effect for three repetitions of stories, with each repetition adding to ac-
curacy in the use of target words. Elley (1989) reported a gain score of 15%
when the same story was read three times. A study of 5- and 6-year-old
nonreading kindergartners indicates that their recognition vocabularies
expanded when they heard stories at least twice with unfamiliar words re-
peated in the stories (Robbins & Ehri, 1994). Those words repeated four
times had a higher probability of being learned than those repeated two
times, although some of the words repeated four times had a negative prob-
ability. The authors suggest that hearing words four times in stories may be
necessary but not sufficient for establishing higher rates of acquisition.
When teacher explanations and review were added, word learning was en-
hanced (Biemiller, 2003; Elley, 1989; Penno et al., 2002).

When words are encountered repeatedly in stories that students read on
their own, there is also a greater probability that those words will be
learned. Jenkins, Stein, and Wysocki (1984) found significant effects when
words were encountered 6 or 10 times in context, but not with only 2 expo-
sures. McKeown et al. (1985) found that a high frequency of exposure (12)
resulted in greater learning gains than a low frequency of exposure (4), re-
gardless of instruction type. They also found that it took 1 2 encounters with
a word to reliably improve reading comprehension (McKeown et al., 1985).
Although they did not report effects of repetition, Schwanenflugel et al.
(1997) found that fourth-grade students gathered information about both
unknown words and partially known words while reading texts independ-
ently, with similar gains for each.

To summarize, several characteristics of the local context of words have
been identified as useful factors in increasing opportunities to learn words
from context. Morphology, concreteness, the density of unknown words,
the helpfulness of the sentences surrounding unknown words, and word
repetition are all factors that appear to significantly influence vocabulary
acquisition from text. Part of speech, length of words, and number of sylla-
bles do not appear to be significant factors by themselves. The relative fre-
quency of a word is an interesting factor whose influence on word learning
from context has yet to be explored.

Global Context

Students come to school with different types of knowledge about words, and
some students are advantaged in their opportunities to learn words from

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context (Hart & Risley, 1995; Scott, 2004). In early grades (K— 1 ), children are
learning how to map sounds onto letters, with the expectation that the words
that they read will map onto the oral vocabulary that they bring to the task.
The system of using letter-sound correspondence to decode for meaning de-
pends on recognizing a word once it is decoded. Thus, the size of one’s oral
vocabulary influences whether or not a word, once decoded, is known.

By the time children enter kindergarten, a conservative estimate is that
native speakers know 4,000 to 5,000 word families, which include each
word’s inflected forms and regular derived forms. In addition, they know
many compound words, proper names, and abbreviations not included in
most estimates (Nation & Waring, 1997). Anglin (1993) estimates that
5-year-olds know closer to 10,000 words.

The range, however, among children in their exposure to academic or
infrequent vocabulary is substantial. It has been estimated that, by age 4, the
average child in an economically disadvantaged home might be exposed to
30 million fewer total words than the average child in an economically ad-
vantaged home (Hart & Risley, 1995, 2003). Other researchers have found
similar gaps in word knowledge (Chall, Jacobs & Baldwin, 1990; White,
Graves & Slater, 1990). Written text contains more complex language and
more varied word choices than oral language, so the mismatch between
school vocabulary and oral vocabulary can be found from the first texts en-
countered in school (Hiebert, in press). As students progress through the
grades, texts become more complex in discourse style and in the number of
words that are rarely encountered in everyday, out-of-school contexts
(Cummins, 2000).

Students who are more skilled at reading and are more knowledgeable
about word meanings are those most able to learn words from context.
Swanborn and de Glopper’s (1999) meta-analysis of research studies led to
the conclusion that the average probability of learning an unknown word
while reading is 1 5%. Thus, for every 1 00 unknown words encountered, stu-
dents appear to gain enough knowledge of about 15 words to enhance their
scores on measures of word knowledge. Based on a multilevel regression
analysis of the studies, grade and reading level were found to influence the
probability of learning a word. Younger students showed a lower probabil-
ity of learning words incidentally (Grade 4 probability was 8%; Grade 1 1
probability was 33%), and lower ability readers gained less than high ability
readers (low ability average gain was 7%; high ability average gain was 1 9%).

Thus, as in other aspects of reading, the rich get richer and the poor get
poorer (Stanovich, 1986). With a substantial achievement gap in reading
comprehension (National Center for Education Statistics, 2003), it is im-
portant to look at factors that help all students gain knowledge about words
from texts. As reading comprehension involves the interplay of factors be-
yond words and text (RAND Reading Study Group, 2002), we also need to

4. OPPORTUNITIES TO ACQUIRE NEW WORD MEANINGS

examine global factors found to influence the opportunity to learn word
meanings from text: (a) conceptual difficulty, (b) purpose for reading, and
(c) importance of world knowledge.

Conceptual Difficulty. Not all words are equal. Knowing a high-fre-
quency or function word such as the is different from knowing the meaning
of a word such as magma. Graves (1987) points out that words that represent
an entirely new concept need a different type of instruction from words that
are synonymous for a known concept. Thus, it is relatively easy to teach a
word like superfluous, for which there exists a close synonym ( unnecessary ).
However, when a word is a new or difficult concept, such as photosynthesis,
conceptual knowledge must be developed.

The idea of an associative network of knowledge is useful in thinking
about learning new words. When people learn new word meanings, they are
either building a new concept and creating new links (e.g photosynthesis), at-
taching a new label to a known concept (e.g., gluing superfluous onto the
concept of unnecessary), or expanding the domain of a label (e.g., adding a
new meaning of break to the associative network). When the word is a new
concept, it needs to be anchored and consolidated within the domain of
knowledge that is being taught. The word magma would not be taught alone
but in conjunction with knowledge about volcanoes. In the development of
this knowledge, it is important to link what is being learned to familiar
words and concepts.

Research indicates that it is harder to learn a word for a new concept inci-
dentally through context than to learn a new word for a known concept
(Nagy, 1997; Nagy etal., 1987). In a study of incidental word learning from
context during independent reading, conceptual difficulty was found to be
the strongest predictor of how easily the words were learned (Nagy et al.,
1987). Words for which a new concept needed to be built (e.g., osmosis) were
rated as conceptually difficult, whereas words that were synonyms for a
well-known concept (e.g., pusillanimous) were rated as less conceptually
complex. Nagy et al. (1987) found little incidental learning from context
when words were rated as conceptually complex.

Purpose for reading is a factor that has been shown to be critical in read-
ing comprehension research, but only one group of researchers has looked
at this aspect of incidental word learning. In a study of sixth-grade students,
Swanborn and de Glopper (2002) found that reading texts for different
purposes influences the amount of incidental word learning that occurs.
The probability of learning a word incidentally was highest when students
read to gain knowledge of the topic (.10) and lowest in a free reading condi-
tion (.06). The low-ability group made no significant progress in its knowledge
of words, regardless of the reading purpose. The average group made gains
only when asked to learn about the topic, and the high-ability group

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learned significantly more words, with probabilities as high as .27 in both
the free reading and the text comprehension conditions.

As world knowledge has frequently been overlooked in studies of vocabu-
lary learning, Nagy (1997) argues cogently for broadening the perspective on
acquiring vocabulary knowledge to include both linguistic knowledge (i.e.,
knowledge about morphemes) and extralinguistic knowledge (i.e., world
knowledge). Given current understanding of the reading process (Anderson &
Pearson, 1984; RAND Reading Study Group, 2002; Ruddell & Unrau, 2004),
it makes sense that inferring the meaning of a word from context

involves a relationship between the situation model (the reader/listener’s
model of meaning of the text) and the text model, as well as knowledge of the
nature of the possible mapping between the two. These, in turn, draw on the
learner’s world knowledge, his or her theory of the conceptual domain to
which the word belongs and knowledge about the way in which the relevant
part of the lexicon is organized. (Nagy, 1997, p. 83)

Studies by Diakidoy (1993, 1998) indicate that a student’s familiarity
with the topic of a passage has a significant effect on word learning from
context; these studies predict more variance as a result of this world knowl-
edge than from measures of local contextual support. Her studies indicate
that, although the enrichment of local context may have value, it is less im-
portant than the development of rich conceptual knowledge. She found
that prior knowledge of the main concepts was most significant in facilitat-
ing reading comprehension and in the ability to infer new word meanings.
In addition, knowledge of concepts gained gradually over time had a more
positive influence on reading comprehension and inferring word meanings
from context than passages read immediately prior to the task.

Summary

The complexity of learning words through text is readily apparent, and the
factors involved are multifaceted and interrelated. As we have seen, it is un-
likely that words that represent new knowledge and are conceptually diffi-
cult or complex will be learned incidentally through text. Inferring the
meaning of a word from context involves more than accessing linguistic in-
formation about a word. It entails mapping the possible meanings for a new
word onto an ongoing mental model of the meaning of the text (Nagy,
1997). This construction of meaning is intimately related to the learner’s
world knowledge. Thus, the more a student knows about a topic, the easier
it will be to learn more about that topic from text.

However, the probability that a word will be learned decreases as the pro-
portion of unknown words in a text increases. It seems that a delicate bal-

4. OPPORTUNITIES TO ACQUIRE NEW WORD MEANINGS

ance must be struck, in which teachers and authors must build background
knowledge without overloading the text with unknown words. In addition,
considerate local contexts, repetition, and the concreteness of words can
enhance the number of words learned incidentally from text (Diakidoy,
1993; Konopak, 1989; Schwanenflugel et ah, 1997).

The length of the word and its part of speech have not been found to
make a significant difference in word learning from context, although stud-
ies are limited in this regard. The effect of frequency is interesting, as words
that students have been exposed to in the past may be those words that are
learned most easily through context. It does seem that those words that are
more frequent in English and have more transparent morphology may be
learned more easily than others, if students have the requisite background
to take advantage of the morphology or have some previous experience
with the words, so that knowledge is being refined and consolidated while
students are reading the text. The purpose for reading and the genre of the
material may also play important roles in learning through text. The next
section looks specifically at informational texts as a genre in which word
learning from context is particularly salient.

LEARNING ABOUT WORDS FROM INFORMATIONAL TEXTS

The ability to read and comprehend informational texts is central to success
in schools and in life. When students leave school, much of what they read
will be for the purpose of gathering information. In a recent study of work-
place literacy demands, Craig (2001) found that over 60% of workers sur-
veyed reported that at least 30% of their workday was spent reading for
information, equaling approximately 2 '/a hours in an 8-hour shift.

Textbooks are the dominant form of instructional material for many ele-
mentary schools, although they are being supplemented by trade books in
many classrooms (Donovan & Smolkin, 2001; Freeman & Person, 1992).
However, a large proportion of American students fail to develop adequate
skill in reading informational texts (Chall et al., 1990; NICHD, 2000). This
could be due, in part, to a lack of exposure to informational texts in lower
grades. Research indicates that primary teachers tend to emphasize narra-
tive texts over informational texts, particularly in low SES settings (Dono-
van & Smolkin, 2001; Duke, 2000).

Differences Between Narrative and Informational Texts

Although there are fuzzy edges to genre distinctions (Lukens, 2003), infor-
mational texts are generally distinguished from narrative texts by features
such as content, purpose, and structure. Informational books emphasize
communication of information based on documented evidence so that a

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reader may learn something. Although many authors of fictional literature
may also hope that the reader will take away a lesson about life, fictional
works are largely products of the authors’ imagination whose purpose is to
entertain (Weaver & Kinstsch, 1991). Structurally, informational texts dif-
fer from narratives in the presentation of information rather than the liter-
ary elements of plot, setting, character, and theme that characterize fiction
(Duke Sc Kays, 1998; Lukens, 2003).

There is another difference between informational and narrative texts
that is often overlooked: the type of words used in the text and how those
words are presented. In informational texts, words are often labels for im-
portant concepts, and each content area contains its own specialized collec-
tion of terms. Thus, words such as tropical, ecosystem, diversity, climate, canopy,
emergents, vegetation, torrential, oxisols, nutrients, and organisms are found on
an introductory page of an informational Eyewitness Book about the jungle
(Greenaway, 1994). Often, otherwords, such as because, furthermore, however,
in conclusion, thus, and to summarize, signal structural elements in informa-
tional texts. In addition, many of the words used in informational texts are
defined either explicitly or implicitly within the text. In comparison, narra-
tive texts tend to emphasize descriptive words related to characterization,
setting, and tone. Thus, the words waterproof, hollow, spacious, comfortable,
tunnel, preceding, asparagus, thawed, acquired, slimy, texture, and rancid appear
on the first full page of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (O’Brien, 1971).

Words can occur in either context, and some forms of nonfiction, such as
biography, are written using descriptive words similar to those used in fic-
tional accounts. In narrative texts, it is easy to skip descriptive words or to
gain sufficient knowledge to understand the gist of a phrase without sophis-
ticated knowledge of the nuances of a word. However, in informational text,
conceptual knowledge is critical, and often the relationship between words
is central to overall meaning, rather than a secondary feature of text.

The distinction between the prevalent word types and presentation
styles in the two text genres needs to be emphasized in discussions of vo-
cabulary research. These differences may influence word learning from
text. This possibility was highlighted in the recent National Reading
Panel report (NICHD, 2000), which suggests that a large portion of vocab-
ulary items should be derived from content learning materials as this
would both help the reader deal with specific reading material containing
content area information and provide the “learner with vocabulary that
would be encountered sufficiently often to make the learning effort worth-
while” (chap. 4, p. 26).

However, there are concerns regarding which words to teach and how
these words are presented in informational text. Harmon, Hedrick and Fox
(2000) report a mismatch between words that teachers rated as central and
words highlighted by publishers in social studies textbooks for Grades 4

4. OPPORTUNITIES TO ACQUIRE NEW WORD MEANINGS

through 8. In comparing the key word selection in textbooks from seven
different publishers, the teachers agreed with publishers’ selection only
48% of the time. In addition, in textbooks by six of the seven publishers,
over 45% percent of key terms appear only once or twice in each unit.

IMPLICATIONS

Learning words from context is complex but, even so, factors have been
identified that may help teachers, publishers, and authors maximize stu-
dents’ opportunities to learn words independently from informational
texts. The implications of these findings for each critical group in ensuring
students’ maximal opportunities — researchers, publishers, and practitio-
ners — are explored next.

Implications for Research

Recent national reports highlighted the need for more vocabulary research
(NICHD, 2000; RAND Reading Study Group, 2002). The report of the
RAND Reading Study Group (2002), in particular, emphasized the need for
research on conditions that optimize learning vocabulary and that consider
the interaction of text factors with the reader, activity, and sociocultural con-
text. As is evident in this review, much of the research on learning vocabulary
has limited the concept of context to local context, not taking global aspects
such as reading purpose or world knowledge into consideration. In these
studies, text was seen as a unitary construct. However, the field of reading re-
search has expanded to acknowledge other important factors such as
intertextuality and social aspects of language learning (Tierney & Pearson,
1994). This understanding is beginning to be reflected in new studies on
learning from context (Diakidoy, 1998; Swanborn & de Glopper, 2002) and
should be emphasized in future research.

One particularly distressing gap in our research knowledge concerns
school-aged English-language learners. Most of the studies exploring sec-
ond-language vocabulary acquisition through text involve adult learners
(e.g., Hu & Nation, 2000; Huckin & Coady, 1999). Research is needed
that explores the relationship between levels of knowledge about English
and the factors identified that influence word learning from text. In their
review of incidental vocabulary acquisition in a second language, Huckin
and Coady ( 1 999) assert that incidental learning requires a basic sight rec-
ognition vocabulary of at least 3,000 most frequent word families in Eng-
lish. Does this hold true for English-language learners in the primary
grades? How do characteristics of the text, such as density of vocabulary
load, repetition of key concepts, and the development of world knowl-
edge, contribute and interact with English-language learners’ developing
understanding of words in text? Implementation studies concerning best

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practices for presenting word knowledge to school-aged English-language
learners are also important.

The relatively new emphasis on word frequency is promising, as it may
link strategies for learning words from context to the idea of learning words
incrementally over time. However, the “Goldilocks” words (Stahl & Stahl,
2004) for English-language learners may be different from the “Goldilocks”
words for English-only students, and such differences need documentation.
Within all studies ofvocabulary acquisition from text, the complexity of word
knowledge and the transactional nature of learning words from context need
to be recognized and explored further.

Implications for Publishers

Basals, textbooks, and tradebooks all contain informational material. In an
analysis of the five most widely used basals in K-3 classrooms, Walsh (2003)
concludes that none even attempt sustained building of word knowledge. I
suggest that this needs to change. Although there is need for further re-
search, this review points to several directions for improvement in the de-
velopment of informational text. Research indicates that creating more
considerate or informative contexts can raise the number of words learned
as students read the text (Diakidoy, 1993; Konopak, 1989). In particular,
decreasing the density of unknown words while increasing the number of
repetitions of key concepts and the strength of contextual support for key
concepts could enhance opportunities to learn words from informational
texts. These improvements in local context, although not sufficient alone,
may help ensure that, in particular, low achieving readers are given the
maximum opportunity to learn particular words. For instance, in one text-
book used in California, 22 words separate the phrase elliptical orbit from a
description of a comet’s path as a long thin oval (Houghton Mifflin Sci-
ence, 2000, p. B24). It seems that this text could be easily revised to move
these pieces of information into proximity.

Because the probability that a word will be learned decreases as the pro-
portion of unknown words in a text increases, it is also important for au-
thors to carefully consider which words are central and which are super-
fluous in conveying the important information in a unit. For instance, al-
though the phrase “doomed to slow destruction” to describe a comet melt-
ing is colorful, it may hinder comprehension by increasing the density of
unknown words (Houghton Mifflin Science, 2000, p. B24).

In addition, publishers need to be aware of the importance of developing
word knowledge in conjunction with world knowledge through a focus on
morphology and the development of a global understanding of concepts.
Most textbooks attempt to highlight key vocabulary, but the words high-
lighted are not necessarily unknown and the selection process for the words
seems unsystematic. For instance, egg and adult are highlighted in a section

4. OPPORTUNITIES TO ACQUIRE NEW WORD MEANINGS

of the life cycle of an insect, blit cocoon is not (Houghton Mifflin Science,
2000, p. A74).

Implications for Practice

In recent chapters (Scott & Nagy, 2004; Scott, 2004), Nagy and I identified
some principles for effective vocabulary instruction:

• Create multidimensional word schemas with students.

• Help students build connective links in the associative network sur-
rounding the words.

• Create multiple opportunities to see and use concepts.

• Help students develop subtle distinctions between related words that
occur in the same semantic field.

These instructional guidelines were developed with all forms of text in
mind. They are especially useful in learning from informational text. In
light of this review, however, additional principles can be applied to en-
hancing word learning from informational texts:

• Exploit the link between world knowledge and word knowledge.
When students are being asked to learn particular content, there is likely
to be a set of new vocabulary words used. The word meanings should be
developed in conjunction with the content knowledge, and central, con-
ceptually complex concepts should be taught directly through discussion
and experience. Tierney and Pearson ( 1 994) talk about teaching with the
text, rather than teaching from it. Words that are being taught need to
match the important content of the unit, and teachers need to determine
which words are central and unknown, given the background knowledge
of their students. The need for multiple exposures to words, along with
the development of rich conceptual knowledge, points to the extended
use of thematic units in which words are seen in various contexts.

• Exploit the morphology of technical and academic words. Informa-
tional texts are rich with terms that are morphologically related. For in-
stance, the words pollen, pollination, pollinate, and pollinated could be
examined to show how they are related both morphologically and se-
mantically. This provides generative knowledge that can be applied to
other words.

• Pay attention to useful words that are part of the academic discourse
of the discipline. Words like analyze, hypothesize, dissect, and microscope are
all words that are likely to be repeated in a science book. They are also
words that may be unknown to disadvantaged students and words that
they need to learn to succeed in academic settings. These may be consid-

SCOTT

ered the “Goldilocks” words in science, words of high utility that are just
right for building the links and bridges that students need to succeed.

In addition, teachers should increase the amount of time dedicated to
studying words, recognizing that learning definitions is not the same as
developing word schemas that can enhance students’ understanding of
the world. In a study of 23 diverse Grade 5-7 classrooms, we found that
teachers spent less than 2% of the total school day focused on under-
standing word meanings in content area instruction (Scott, Jamie-
son-Noel, & Asselin, 2003). This seems quite low, and I urge teachers to
increase the amount of time spent developing word knowledge in con-
junction with world knowledge. In addition to a focus on learning spe-
cific words, a general focus on word consciousness and generative
knowledge about words would enhance opportunities for acquiring new
word meanings from text.

• Analyze texts for density of vocabulary load, repetition of key con-
cepts, and helpfulness of the text. Schools and teachers help determine
the materials that are set before children. Using the information in this
review can help decision makers select materials that maximize opportu-
nities to learn words from context.

A FINAL WORD

Growth in word knowledge is slow, incremental, and requires multiple expo-
sures over time. Much of a student’s vocabulary is learned incidentally
through multiple exposures to words in multiple contexts (Nagy & Scott,
2000; Stahl, 2003) Through these encounters, students add to their gl owing
network of knowledge about the word. However, not all children learn words
from context at an equal rate, nor are all words equally learned from context.

Many children arrive at our doorsteps with little background in the use of
academic language or vocabulary. They depend on schools and schooling
to become knowledgeable about the words found in an academic discourse.
As educators, it is incumbent on us to provide the maximum opportunity
for all students to gain access and knowledge about the academic discourse
needed to succeed in schools.

There are still many gaps in our research knowledge. However, it seems
that a concerted effect on the part of publishers, authors, teachers, and re-
searchers could improve the chances that all students, including those who
have been marginalized by texts that are too difficult and inconsiderate, will
learn important words. A multifaceted approach is necessary; words are
unique, like individual students, and one type of instruction is not ade-
quate. Acquiring both word knowledge and world knowledge is a gradual
and cumulative process (Hirsch, 2003). Designing materials intentionally,

4. OPPORTUNITIES TO ACQUIRE NEW WORD MEANINGS

teaching word knowledge in conjunction with world knowledge, and recog-
nizing those words that are likely to be “picked up” incidentally in texts and
those that need more active instruction are necessary steps in closing the
language gap.

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PART

INSTRUCTIONS

AND INTERVENTIONS

THAT ENHANCE VOCABULARY

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Chapter

Four Problems

With Teaching Word Meanings

(And What to Do to Make Vocabulary
an Integral Part of Instruction)

Steven A. Stahl

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

To a large extent, the words we know and use are who we are. Words can
define, to the outside world (and maybe even to ourselves), how smart we
are (or think we are), what kinds of jobs we do, and what our qualifications
for jobs might be. A person for whom camouflage or depravity or sultry falls
easily off the lips is likely to be presumed to have a wide-ranging knowl-
edge or at least a high-quality education. A person who can talk about pop-
ulism, deficit spending, and interest rates is presumed to know something
about economics or politics or both and will be listened to, at least in some
circles. Words are notjust tokens that one might memorize to impress oth-
ers. Instead, the words that make up one’s vocabulary are part of an inte-
grated network of knowledge. Some of these words might be the
“fifty-cent” words that my father used to talk about, and others are words
that are simpler but connected.

Vocabulary knowledge is knowledge; the knowledge of a word not only
implies a definition, but also implies how that word fits into the world.
Schemas for even simple concepts such as fish may be infinitely expanding,
from fish to specific fish, to the anatomy of fish, to broiled fish, to other sea
creatures, to scales and gills, ad infinitum. The more we know about the con-

STAHL

cept fish, the more words we will bring into our understanding of the con-
cept. And, depending on our interests and our backgrounds, we will bring
different words to that understanding. A fishmonger may know more or
fewer fish-related words than a marine biologist, but will certainly know dif-
ferent words, some of which make up the jargon used in the business of sell-
ing fish. The words we know define who we are.

WHAT DO WE MEAN BY “VOCABULARY”?

The word vocabulary itself can be confusing. Sometimes educators talk about
a “sight vocabulary” or a set of the most common words in English (e.g., Fry,
Fountoukidis, 8c Polk, 1985). It is certainly important for children to recog-
nize instantly a set of 100 or 300 or more words in print, especially because a
small number of words (105, according to Adams, 1990) accounts for 509f of
the words children encounter in a typical reading passage. However, in this
chapter, I discuss word meanings, and so I use the words vocabulary and word
meanings synonymously. Furthermore, I discuss types of vocabularies other
than sight vocabulary, including concept vocabularies, content area vocab-
ularies, and so on. I believe that these different vocabularies have different
demands and should be taught in different ways.

FOUR PROBLEMS

One would think that the problem of teaching word meanings is a simple
one — just determine what words need to be learned and teach them to chil-
dren as efficiently as possible. There are, however, four problems with this
approach:

1 . The sheer number of words that children need to learn so as to under-
stand and use with proficiency both oral and written language.

2. The gap in levels of word knowledge among children.

3. The gap in levels of word knowledge begins even before children en-
ter school.

4. Traditional vocabulary instruction does not teach children word-learn-
ing strategies and how to appreciate words.

Let us take a closer look at each of the problems.

The Sheer Number of Words to Be Learned

Achieving thorough vocabulary knowledge is a goal that may never be
reached, even by intelligent adults. Even though we, as educated adults,
know thousands of words, there are always words that we see or hear that we

5. FOUR PROBLEMS WITH TEACHING WORD MEANINGS

do not know. A few years ago, as an example, I was reading Newsweek and
encountered the word quotidian. This is a word that I did not know, and I was
surprised to see it in a mass-market magazine. Since then, however, I have
come across quotidian numerous times.

Estimates of how many words are in the English language vary. The Ox-
ford English Dictionary, which is the largest compilation of English
words — modern, obsolete, and archaic — contains upward of one million
words, with new words (such as Mcjob and JPEG) constantly being added.
English is promiscuous in the way that it adds words and takes words from
sources such as other languages, slang, and compounding. Of course, nei-
ther children nor adults need to know all of these words, but they are out
there to be learned and used.

A more reasonable estimate for the number of words that children
need to know is that of Nagy and Anderson (1984), who estimated that
the number of different word families found in the books that children
read from Grades 1 through 12 is approximately 87,000. Of course,
many of these words appear only once and readers may not have to know
them to understand what they read. Even so, Nagy and Anderson con-
cluded that an average high school senior knows about 45,000 different
words. Forty-five thousand is still a great many words to learn. If it is as-
sumed that a child enters Grade 1 knowing roughly 6,000 different
words, the child needs to learn 39,000 additional words or so over the
next 12 years. That’s about 3,000 new words per year. Three thousand
new words a year means that the child must learn roughly 1 0 new words
each day. But although this may sound like an impossible goal to achieve,
research suggests that the average child does learn roughly 3,000 words
per year (White, Graves, & Slater, 1990).

This average, however, obscures some important differences. White and
his colleagues found a range of growth between 1 ,000 words for low-achiev-
ing children and 5,000 for higher achieving children. This range is impor-
tant. If one child’s vocabulary grows only a fifth as much as another’s, the
differences between low-achieving and high-achieving children will only
grow larger over time.

D’Anna, Zechmiester, and Hall (1991) report even lower estimates of
how many words children know and how many words they need to know.
Some of these estimates are as low as 5,000 root words over the course of the
elementary school years. This would be a more manageable number of
words to teach. However, these root words do not include less common but
still essential words. Take, for example, a sample from a book I recently
read: bridal, nonchalant, taxidermy, and stamina. None of these words would
be on a list of core root words. Children are generally intelligent and inquis-
itive, making them naturally curious and receptive to learning new and in-
teresting words. Thus, concentrating exclusively on root words, although

STAHL

they are certainly important, would deny children a source of pleasure in
the “gift of words,” as Scott and Nagy (2004) refer to children’s delight in
and metacognitive awareness of new and interesting vocabulary.

The Gap in Word Knowledge Among Children

If we accept that children must learn 1 0 words a day to make normal progress
in vocabulary development, we then need to find ways to facilitate this learn-
ing. Clearly, 10 words a day is more than can be taught directly. Typically, I
have observed teachers directly teaching 10 to 12 words per week, but never
that many per day, at least not successfully. Although direct teaching of spe-
cific words is effective in improving comprehension (National Reading
Panel, 2000; Stahl & Fairbanks, 1986), the large number of words that aver-
age children must learn cannot be acquired in any way other than from see-
ing words in context — that is, from wide reading (Stahl, 1991).

Children’s books contain a great many rare words — words that often
appear only once per book or even once across several million words of
text. One group of researchers found a higher density of less frequently
used words in an average children’s book than in an average television
program, or even in the conversation of two college-educated adults
(Hayes 8c Ahrens, 1988). For children who are normally achieving read-
ers, the appearance of rare words poses few difficulties, making the read-
ing of children’s books a good source of their word learning. The problem
arises with children who have reading problems. Although struggling
readers can learn words from children’s books, their reading problems
mean that they read fewer books and the books that they read are less chal-
lenging. As a result, they fall further and further behind their peers in
word learning (Stanovich, 1986).

The widening gap in word learning between children who have reading
problems and normally achieving children is an important result of reading
problems. Because children with reading problems tend to have smaller vo-
cabularies (mainly through a lack of exposure to words in challenging
books rather than through differences in abilities), they often have diffi-
culty understanding and participating in class discussions of reading selec-
tions that contain challenging words.

The Word-Knowledge Gap Begins Early

The word-learning gap may begin before children enter school. Although
children may have sufficient vocabulary to communicate well at home and
in their immediate neighborhoods, the “academic” vocabulary they en-
counter when they start school can be as unfamiliar as a foreign language
(Stahl & Nagy, 2004). In a widely cited study, Hart and Risley (1995) found

5. FOUR PROBLEMS WITH TEACHING WORD MEANINGS

that children from advantaged homes (i.e., children of professionals) had
receptive vocabularies as much as five times larger than children from wel-
fare homes (i.e., children in families receiving Aid to Families with Depend-
ent Children). They found that children in welfare homes had fewer words
spoken to them, with more words spoken in imperative sentences (e.g.,
“Turn off the TV.”) and fewer in descriptive or elaborative sentences (“Look
at the yellow daffodils starting to bloom over by the door.”). Their picture is
of a widening gap between the well-off and the poor, a gap that threatens to
widen over time (Hart & Risley, 1995).

These early differences in vocabulary knowledge can influence children’s
reading throughout the elementary years — and beyond. Dickinson and Ta-
bors (2001) found that children’s word knowledge in preschool still had sig-
nificant correlations with their comprehension in upper elementary school.

In contrast, Biemiller and Slonim (2001), who examined children’s
growth in word meanings between Grades 2 and 5, found that children in
the bottom quartile learned more words per day (averaging 3 root words)
than did children in the upper quartile (averaging 2.3 root words per day).
They suggest that children in the lower quartile had more words to learn,
so, given the same exposure to words in school, were able to learn more.
However, as children in the lowest quartile started so far behind, they knew
only as many word meanings by Grade 5 as typical Grade 4 students.
Biemiller and Slonim (2001) suggest that, to close this gap, vocabulary in-
struction should begin earlier.

Traditional Instruction

At issue, then, is not whether to provide instruction, but how best to do so.
As others in this book note, vocabulary instruction traditionally has con-
sisted of minimal instruction involving memorization of definitions, in-
struction that was not very effective. I maintain that, instead, vocabulary
instruction should be part of the fabric of the classroom — an integral part of
all instruction. Beck, McKeown, & Kucan (2002) and Calderon et al. and
Carlo et al. in this book, along with others (see, e.g., Stahl & Nagy, 2004),
have provided valuable information about how to do this. All of these ap-
proaches view word learning as a part of a knowledge curriculum; that is, as
an “instructional conversation” (Saunders & Goldenberg, 1999) in which
words are embedded, rather than taught as isolated factoids.

INTEGRATING VOCABULARY LEARNING
INTO A KNOWLEDGE CURRICULUM

Programs that make word learning part of an integrated curriculum gener-
ally share several common characteristics: (a) frequent reading aloud to

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children, (b) the use of different methods to teach different kinds of words,
(c) point of contact teaching, (d) extensive teaching to ensure that word
meanings “stick,” (e) teaching complex concepts, and (f) concerted efforts
to help children acquire an appreciation of the power of words.

Reading Aloud to Children

We typically view reading to children as an activity for prereaders or pri-
mary school children. However, older as well as younger children appear to
benefit from read-aloud activities, and older children can learn the mean-
ings of new words as efficiently from hearing stories read to them as they
can from reading the stories themselves (Stahl, Richek, & Vandevier, 1991).
Reading to older children also can be used as a way of getting them inter-
ested in a book so that they will continue reading it on their own.

For reading aloud to be most effective, the books read should be intellec-
tually challenging. Consider the richness of language in a book such as
Deborah Wiles’ (2001) Freedom Summer, a book intended for students in
Grades 3 or 4, but challenging enough to be used in the upper grades as well:

John Henry’s skin is the color of browned butter. He smells like pine needles
after a good rain. My skin is the color of the pale moths that dance around
the porch light at night. John Henry says that I smell like ajust-washed sock.
“This means war!” I shout. We churn that water into a white hurricane and
laugh until our sides hurt. (Wiles, 2001, p. 6)

To deny children such richness of language because they might have dif-
ficulties recognizing words would be to do them a terrible injustice. As I said
earlier, children’s books are “where the words are.” Reading aloud may be
the only way for some children to experience those words.

This said, listening to stories should never be a passive activity.
Children should always be held responsible for what they hear; listening
to stories should not be a time to relax. Instead, children should be
taught how to listen for a purpose, how to discuss what they heard, to re-
act critically to a reading, and to generate conversations about what they
hear. I prefer that active listening be done in groups. But even if tapes
are used with individual students (e.g., Chomsky, 1978), children still
should be held responsible for what they hear, even if that responsibility
is limited to retelling a story to an adult or to answering questions about a
reading. Studies have found that having children merely listen to tapes,
without assigning them responsibility for what is on the tapes, does not
improve achievement (e.g., Haynes & Jenkins, 1986; Leinhardt,
Zigmond, & Cooley, 1981).

5. FOUR PROBLEMS WITH TEACHING WORD MEANINGS

101

Different Teaching for Different Words

One of the problems with vocabulary teaching is that it takes a great deal of
time. One study, which admittedly attempted to provide the “Cadillac” of
vocabulary instruction, devoted about 20 minutes to the teaching of each
word (Beck, McKeown, & Caslin, 1983). In most classrooms, of course,
teachers allot much less instructional time to teaching words. Even so, given
the number of words that must be taught, vocabulary instruction can be
time-consuming. Although it may seem to go without saying, it is critical to
remember that not all words are the same. As Graves (2000) observed,
words are of different types. Consider the following types of words

• Words for which children know synonyms, such as evil, crimson, speak-
ing, or superior;

• Words that can be explained with definitions, examples, and context,
such as challenge, pedal, harp, or betray, and

• Words that represent complex concepts, such as liberty, biome, or proba-
bility.

Fortunately, each of these different types of words can be taught differ-
ently, thus making vocabulary teaching an easier-to-manage and less
time-consuming task. The following sections discuss some of these different
approaches to teaching different types of words.

Point of Contact Teaching

In teaching a word for which children know synonyms, the focus of the
task is to help them relate the word to a synonym so that they can read a
passage in which it appears. If, for example, a child seems puzzled when
he or she tries to read the word crimson in a passage, the teacher can
quickly say something such as “crimson means red ” and have the child
move on. This brief bit of information may be enough to allow a child to
understand what he or she is reading. But although such instruction may
help the child understand a specific passage, it probably will not lead to
overall improvement in his or her reading comprehension. One study
found, in fact, that simply having children memorize synonyms for unfa-
miliar words in a passage did not affect their comprehension of that pas-
sage (for a review, see Stahl, 1998; Stahl & Fairbanks, 1986). Therefore,
this instructional approach is best used with words that may be relatively
rare ( malefactor is a good example) or are not particularly important to
understanding a passage.

Given the literary language of children’s books, even those intended for
young children, this “point of contact” teaching is important. Not every

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“hard” word has to be taught. Choosing which words to teach involves
teacher judgment, a process in which good teachers are continually engaged.

Teachers can initiate point of contact teaching (see also, Beck et al.,
2002) either before reading a section or during reading a passage or section
of text. Such teaching should be quick and used no more than once per
page. If it is used more often than that, it becomes disruptive and distracts
children from focusing on the flow of the text. Because the purpose of read-
ing is comprehension, such disruptions and distractions should be avoided.

Children also can initiate point of contact instruction. Self-monitoring of
comprehension, or becoming aware that something, such as not knownng
the meaning of a word, is preventing us from understanding what we read,
is a metacognitive ability (Baker & Brown, 1984). Children often do not
have this ability and skip or gloss over words that are unfamiliar to them.
The awareness that they do not know a word, or that they need to know' a
word to get the correct meaning from a text, is important. If they become
confused or frustrated as they read, children can initiate a point of contact
teaching opportunity by giving a signal so that the teacher or a peer can
provide the word. This is minimal instruction, and possibly not really in-
struction at all. It is, however, a way to help children get through a difficult
text with little disruption. As with teacher-initiated teaching, it should be
done probably no more than once a page, and it should not substitute for
more extensive instruction of the type discussed next.

More Extensive Teaching

Point of contact teaching is not adequate for children to learn words in away
that can substantially improve their comprehension or increase their vocab-
ulary. Certainly, some of the words taught this way will “stick,” and having
even one exposure to a word and its synonym is better than nothing. It is un-
reasonable, however, to expect too much word learning from such brief ex-
posure. To teach words in a meaningful manner requires instruction that is
more extensive, although probably not as extensive as the 20 minutes per
word discussed earlier.

In a review of vocabulary instructional studies, Stahl and Fairbanks (1986)
found three principles that characterized effective vocabulary instruction:

• Effective vocabulary instruction provides both definitional and
contextual information about a word.

• Effective instruction requires that children engage in deep process-
ing of each word, including generating information that ties the new
word to already known information.

• Effective instruction involves multiple exposures to each word.

I briefly discuss each of these principles in turn.

5. FOUR PROBLEMS WITH TEACHING WORD MEANINGS

103

Definitional and Contextual Information. Consider the process of
placing a call to someone you do not know well enough to call often. You
look up the number in the phone book, walk to the phone, dial the num-
ber, and, by the time the person you are calling answers, you have forgot-
ten the number. You forget the number because that particular phone
number is not meaningful to you. Rather, it is an arbitrary piece of infor-
mation. We tend to remember meaningful information because we can in-
tegrate it with other information, as I discuss later. So it is with the
traditional vocabulary instruction that we received in our upper elemen-
tary and secondary school years. We remember having to memorize lists of
word definitions, with tests over the lists on Fridays. If the test was in the
morning, nearly all of the words were out of our heads by lunch. Not only
was this memorization boring to most of us, but it also did not lead to ap-
preciable growth in our vocabularies (National Reading Panel, 2000;
Stahl, 1998; Stahl 8c Fairbanks, 1986). Why? Because in this approach to
instruction, definitions are treated as arbitrary pieces of information, just
as are infrequently called phone numbers.

A word’s “meaning” is more than just a definition. Consider the word
swam, used in its ordinary sense as “moved through water by using one’s
hands and feet.” The word has multiple senses, depending on the context
in which it appears, as in:

• Melanie swam toward the wall.

• The five-year-old swam across the kiddy pool on her belly, kicking and
splashing and laughing all the way.

• Our team swam strongly, but was not able to win the meet.

• The alligator swam through the swamp toward the girls’ dangling feet.

• Dad slowly swam across the pool to get an iced tea from Mom.

The first sentence evokes a fairly typical swimming action. We do not
know much about it without any additional context. The second sentence
creates a picture of a beginner, the third of a vigorous competition, the
fourth of stealth, and the fifth of a leisurely crawl. Each of these is
“swam,” but each of these is distinctively different. Context can change
dramatically the meanings of words, even those as simple and well de-
fined as swam.

To learn a new word, we must not only learn how that word relates to
other words (the definitional information), but also how the word changes
in different contexts. Learning definitional information is more that just
learning the definition (and definitions can be difficult to understand), but
also learning about:

• Synonyms. As discussed earlier, often a synonym is all children need

to understand a new word in context.

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• Antonyms. Encouraging children to think about antonyms for a word
requires them to identify the word’s crucial aspects. For example, the
word chaos implies an abyss, a void, or clutter, but its antonym, order, nar-
rows the focus to the “clutter” part of the word’s meaning.

• Categories. Part of definitional knowledge is knowing the category
into which a word fits. Being able to classify vehicle as a form of transpor-
tation, accountant as a type of job, or orca as a type of whale, which in turn
is a mammal, is an important part of building word knowledge.

• Comparisons to other, similar words. Comparing words can be a very
powerful means of learning new' words. Consider the word debris. This is a
form of “trash,” but not all trash is debris. The meaning of garbage is actu-
ally restricted to discarded organic material, such as apple cores or food
scraps. Debris means trash that is left over from some sort of accident or
catastrophic event, such as an automobile accident or a plane crash (and
sometimes from a child’s playtime).

Venn diagrams — two overlapping circles, shaded or crosshatched to
show relationships between the words in each circle — are a convenient way
to illustrate these comparisons. Words such as helicopter, albatross, penguin,
warrior, and sparrow, to pick just a few examples, can be put into a set of in-
terlocking circles. The words I listed pose some ambiguity for comparisons,
with a possible set of “birds” or “things that fly” or “military things.” Ambi-
guity, however, can lead to lively discussion, which, in turn, can lead to more
word learning.

The basic Venn diagram can be used to make a great many distinctions.
For children in the primary grades, distinctions can be made between ani-
mals that live in water and animals that live on land (with amphibians in the
overlap). For older children, the diagram might be used to make a distinc-
tion between “rebellion” and “protest,” which might be useful in explaining
the American Revolution. One of the reasons that propelled the conflict was
that King George viewed the colonists’ activities as rebellion against the
Crown, whose power was to be viewed as absolute. In contrast, the colonists
viewed their activities as protest against unjust laws. This conflict in values
was a critical component in bringing about the revolution.

Semantic maps are basically more elaborate Venn diagrams. To be effec-
tive, semantic mapping should be a two-part procedure, beginning with
brainstorming. The teacher choses a key word taken from the selection to
be read, such as spider or cancer or map. Then students and teacher brain-
storm words that relate to this key word. For map, they might come up with
the words key, compass, road, scale, border, and river. Such an activity is quite
different — and is substantially more meaningful — than the fill-in-the-blank
format that is often used for semantic maps. Comparisons between and
among words can be part of a discussion about a new word's meaning.

5. FOUR PROBLEMS WITH TEACHING WORD MEANINGS

105

McKeown, Beck, Omanson, and Pople (1985) have an activity called “Silly
Questions” that can fit into most vocabulary programs. Because it is short, it
can also fit as a “sponge activity” to fill in a space in the classroom day. Silly
Questions involves taking two of any set of words and combining them into
questions, such as: “Can a hermit be a villain?” “Can an actuary be a accoun-
tant?” “Can an accountant be a hermit?” “Can a malefactor be amorous?”
“Would a hermit be amorous?” and so on. Some questions are easily an-
swered, others require discussion, and others require some research, but
the activity encourages children to think about the meanings of words.

Dictionary Definitions. Although requiring children to write dictio-
nary definitions is likely to generate boredom rather than word learning, a
dictionary can be a useful tool, and definitions can and should be taught.
Definitions try to preserve the Aristotelian view of meaning. This suggests
that words can be categorized by the category (genus) to which the word be-
longs and how that word differs from other members of the category
(differentiae). Thus, to cite two examples, eider is “a large sea duck of the
northern hemisphere” (genus = duck; differentiae = large, sea, northern
hemisphere) and hagiography is a “biography that treats its subject with un-
due reverence” (genus = biography; differentiae = with undue reverence).

Instruction related to dictionary definitions should be simple and direct
and involve children in analyzing dictionary definitions in the course of vo-
cabulary instruction. .Another way to teach definitions is to use an explana-
tory dictionary, such as the COBUILD (Cobuild Staff, 2002) dictionary. In
this dictionary, the definitions are presented in the form of an explanation.
For example, the entry for fissure is, “A fissure is a deep crack in something,
especially in rock or in the ground.” Other entries can contain sentences
that show how the word is used, along with the explanations. For example,
the entry for plunge is, “If something or someone plunges in a particular di-
rection, especially into water, they fall, rush, or throw themselves in that di-
rection. At least 50 people died when a bus plunged into a river ...He ran down the
steps to the pool terrace and plunged in. ” Although the COBUILD includes ex-
amples from American English, it is a British dictionary, and the usages and
spellings do differ from those in the United States. This might confuse
some children, so caution should be used.

Contextual Knowledge. Just as learning to extend word meaning with
dictionaries is critical, children also need to know how that new word fits
into different contexts. Adeptness with word use involves examining words
in context and, more importantly, generating context.

• Generating sentences. Generating sentences is a useful way for chil-
dren to learn about word meanings, but the sentences created need to

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clearly express the meaning of the targeted words. All too often, generat-
ing sentences becomes a meaningless time filler, perceived that way by
both children and teachers. One way that teachers can avoid this prob-
lem is to have three or four children say sentences that contain the tar-
geted word, then have the rest of the class rate how well the sentences
express the word’s meaning.

• Scenarios. Having groups of children make up scenarios that con-
tain a word or, as this activity is time-consuming, a group of words can
also be useful in building vocabulary. Scenarios can bring words together,
allowing children both to put the words in context and to understand the
relationships between words. Scenarios can be in the form of prose, such
as stories, or plays that groups of children can act out.

• Possible Sentences. Possible Sentences activities allow children to pre-
dict both the meanings of the words to be learned and the content of what
they are going to read. In Possible Sentences, children are given a set of
10 to 12 words that have been taken from a passage they are about to
read. Of these words, about four should be known to the children and the
rest unknown. Children are asked to make up sentences, each containing
two words from the list that might appear in the passage. The words can
(and should) be reused. For a passage on insects, the list of words might
include: antenna, butterfly, abdomen, thorax, grasshopper, wings, jointed, legs,
spider, propulsion, feeling, ant.

Students might come up with sentences such as:

A grasshopper uses its legs for propulsion. (Correct)

A spider is not an insect because it has eight legs. (Correct)

The thorax is the part of the ant that eats. (Incorrect)

A butterfly has pretty wings. (Correct)

Note the emphasis on rich contexts. Having students fill in the blanks on
a vocabulary worksheet or generate short, quick sentences both provide
contexts to augment definitions and can be included in vocabulary instruc-
tion for expediency, but they are not as effective for increasing word knowl-
edge as Possible Sentence activities.

Generating Rich Connections. The second principle of effective vo-
cabulary instruction is that children need to generate rich connections be-
tween the new word and already known information. This involves more
than learning a simple association, as in the old-fashioned dictionary mem-
orization activities of our school days. Merely comprehending the word in
context, during wide reading alone or with point of contact teaching, leads

5. FOUR PROBLEMS WITH TEACHING WORD MEANINGS

107

to more learning, but not as much as does having students process the word
deeply, generating connections between the new word and different con-
texts and prior knowledge of other words.

Consider the following scenario for the word apprentice:

The apprentice must rise before the master, before the first rays of the sun
come out. At that time, the apprentice needs to put on the fire, heat up a
pitcher for hot water to make the master’s tea. Once breakfast is finished, the
apprentice needs to prepare the tools for the morning’s work. As the master
sits down on his bench, the apprentice sits on the side, ready to provide the
tools that the master needs, but otherwise watches closely. The master is
ready to teach. The apprentice is ready to learn.

Preparing such a scenario requires that the children connect “apprentice”
to “master,” “learn,” and “teach,” all crucial concepts. It also requires that the
children connect the concept of “apprentice” to a more historical, rural con-
text. Such a scenario cannot be produced without some preteaching by the
teacher, but such preteaching would lead to rich learning and might also be a
good prereading writing activity for a book that involves an apprenticeship.

Discussion is a powerful way to have children generate connections be-
tween new and known information (Stahl & Clark, 1987; Stahl &r Vancil,
1986). Discussion makes children active thinkers, because they are trying to
make contributions to the discussion. These connections, of course, only oc-
cur if an individual child believes that her or his contribution will be accepted
and valued by others. Teachers need to make special efforts to create a class-
room community in which the contributions of all children are equally ac-
cepted. Some guidelines for creating an environment in which this can
happen can be found in Saunders and Goldenberg (1999). True discussion,
in which all children can participate without intervention by the teacher, is a
powerful tool for vocabulary learning, but considerable vocabulary learning
also can occur in recitation, in which the teacher monitors the turn taking.

As part of their Text Talk approach to discussing new books with young chil-
dren, McKeown and Beck (Beck & McKeown, 2001; McKeown & Beck, 2003)
provide a wonderful example of rich vocabulary instruction. Here is the activ-
ity they used to teach the word absurd as part of their introduction to the story
Burnt Toast on Davenport Street (Egan, cited in McKeown & Beck, 2003):

absurd: In the story, when the fly told Arthur he could have three wishes if he
didn’t kill him, Arthur said he thought that was absurd. That means Arthur
thought it was silly to believe a fly could grant wishes. When something is ab-
surd — it is ridiculous and hard to believe.

If I told you that your teacher was going to stand on his/her head to teach
you — that would be absurd. If someone told you that dogs could fly — that
would be absurd.

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I’ll say some things, and if you think they are absurd, say: “That’s absurd!” If
you think they are not absurd, say: “That makes sense.”

I have a singing cow for a pet. (absurd)

I saw a tall building that was made of green cheese, (absurd)

Last night I watched a movie on TV. (makes sense)

This morning I saw some birds flying around the sky. (makes sense)

If I said let’s fly to the moon this afternoon, that would be absurd. Who can
think of an absurd idea? (When a child answers, ask another if they think that
was absurd, and if so, to tell the first child: “That’s absurd!”)

Notice how the researchers provide a bridge from the example of the
word’s use in the book to examples in different contexts. Also notice that
this lesson should be quick-paced, probably no more than 2 minutes, with
high participation. Children could respond chorally except to the last item.
From this instruction, it is likely that the group would understand absurd
fairly well in the short period of time.

Providing Multiple Exposures to a Word’s Meaning. The third princi-
ple of effective vocabulary learning is to provide multiple exposures to a
word’s meaning. This does not mean mere repetition of drill of the word and
a synonym or a definition (e.g., companion means “friend”), but seeing the
word in different contexts — in sentences, with a definition, and with elabo-
rated information. Repetition can be overdone, but a child probably has to
see a word more than once to place it firmly in his or her long-term memory.

The picture I have been painting is of vocabulary instruction in a context
of rich instruction about texts, rather than the sterile, isolated instruction
that we remember from our youth. This rich instruction occurs in oral dis-
cussion and collaborative work that fully enables all children in the class to
participate. It involves group work and the teacher providing an environ-
ment in which equal participation can occur.

Teaching Complex Concepts

Even the more extensive instruction I just discussed is not enough to teach
some words. Words such as flock, herd, confine, or slaughter, all taken from a
Thanksgiving-related magazine article about turkeys, are relatively easy to
define and put into various contexts. However, understanding the larger
concept of factory farming (the point of the article) requires more than learn-
ing a definition and coming up with a few selected contexts. This example
seems abstract, but children encounter many complex concepts, such as eco-
system, liberty, circulatory system, representation, and so on in their content area

5. FOUR PROBLEMS WITH TEACHING WORD MEANINGS

109

reading. These concepts cannot be neatly defined, but instead must be de-
veloped through what Spiro, Coulson, Feltovich, and Anderson (1994) call
“criss-crossing” the landscape.

Take, for example, the concept of liberty. This is a fairly common con-
cept for children in the upper elementary grades to encounter in their
textbooks. A dictionary definition of liberty might be: “The freedom to
think or act without being constrained by necessity or force.” In this defi-
nition, the category to which liberty belongs is “freedom” and what differ-
entiates it is that the freedom refers to being able to think or act without
constraint. But is this liberty ? Obviously, our society puts constraints on
our liberty, beginning with the constraint not to commit criminal acts
ranging from murder to speeding, so that we can function as a society.
When a constraint is needed to maintain a civil society and when that
constraint violates liberty can be a useful topic for discussion, even in a
fifth-grade class. Liberty can also be personal. Parents differ in terms of
the rules and constraints they set for their children; these are variations
in liberty as well. In both realms, there are nonexamples. Totalitarian
states restrict personal and political liberties; curfews and chaperones
restrict personal liberties.

To understand liberty, then, one must understand what liberty is. A list
generated as a result of a rich class discussion might look like the following:

Category: Freedom

What is different: To think or act without constraint

Examples: Personal

Going to the mall by oneself
Hanging with friends
Ability to choose
Political

Ability to vote
Freedom of speech
Freedom of religion

Nonexamples

Personal

Parents’ rales
Curfews

Not being able to talk in class
Political

Not being able to kill or steal
Dictatorships

Not being able to chose one’s leader
Not being allowed to criticize the laws

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A class discussion that generated a list such as this would have looked at
the concept of liberty from a variety of perspectives, not just going through
the concept as a dictionary definition, but “criss-crossing” it from the per-
sonal and political perspectives, looking at what liberty is and what it is not,
understanding the boundaries of the concept. In other words, developing a
full and rich understanding of the concept.

The discussion needed to develop this rich understanding is more time
consuming than the extended instruction discussed earlier and should be
reserved only for concepts that need such instruction. This discussion
should take place prior to reading, because it is needed to set the stage for
unit or theme understanding. The examples just listed are generally con-
tent area examples, but the technique can also be used for literary themes,
or even discussions of genre ( narrative , exposition, textbook, recipe, etc.).

One example of an activity that can used to build full and thorough un-
derstandings of a concept is the “four-square” vocabulary approach (Eeds
& Cockrum, 1985). This approach uses either a printed diagram or, more
simply, a piece of paper folded so that it has four squares. Figure 5.1 illus-
trates the use of such a diagram around a word to be learned, such as preju-
dice. Examples of the word are written in the second box, upper right. For
prejudice, these examples might include such things as disliking someone
because of skin color or because they do not speak English or because of
how they dress. Nonexamples are written in the next box, lower right. For
prejudice, nonexamples might be such things as acceptance or reaching
out to people who are different from oneself. Finally, in the last box, the
definition of the word is written. The completed box has been illustrated
with the word prejudice.

Four-square boxes can be done as whole-class activities or by groups of
children working together. What I like about this activity is its ease and the
possibility of its spontaneous use to discuss a particularly gnarly concept
that might arise during reading. The activity is flexible enough to use on
less complex concepts, but adaptable to even fairly abstract ideas.

Learning About Words

English is made up of words that come from everywhere. Many words come
from Anglo-Saxon, yes; but they also come from other languages as familiar
as French (i chauffeur ) and as exotic as Icelandic (mukluk) or Chinese (abacus).
Some come from the military (snafu), from the names of people (sandwich),
or from songs (Yankee Doodle). A great many of the academic words that are
important to school success come from Latin and Greek. Scholars in the Re-
naissance and beyond, being trained in these “learned” languages, created
neologisms (the word itself from the Greek, neo- [new], logos [word]) to de-

5. FOUR PROBLEMS WITH TEACHING WORD MEANINGS

111

Prejudice

Disliking someone
because of their beliefs
or appearance

Hatred or dislike
because a person is
different

Acceptance

Tolerance of differences

FIG. 5.1. Four-square diagram for the teaching the word prejudice.

scribe the many new concepts they were discovering. Thus, our language is
full of words that contain quad-, bio-, loq-,fed-, and so on.

For students, word-part instruction can be truly boring, full of the
memorization of lists and definitions. However, such instruction also can
be an opportunity for students to engage in a thoughtful exploration of
the roots of English.

Teaching word parts in Grades 3-5 can help children learn a great deal
of words. Simple prefixes and suffixes can provide a significant amount of
vocabulary growth in those grades (Anglin, 1993). According to analyses
conducted by White, Sowell, and Yanigihara ( 1 989), 1 1 prefixes account for
81% of all prefixed words and six suffixes account for 80% of all suffixed
words. Teaching children this group of high-leverage prefixes and suffixes
ensures that students generalize their knowledge of both root words (to af-
fixed words) and the changes in meaning indicated by affixes. This group of
affixes from White et al. (1989) that accounts for approximately 80% of all
affixed words is listed in Table 5.1.

A discussion of word parts should become an integral part of word-learn-
ing instruction. Discussions that include stories about word origins and der-
ivations can stir interest in learning more about language — that is, build
word consciousness. Stories that help children to see and understand how
similarities in word spellings may show similarities in meaning, may solidify
and expand their word knowledge. For example, the seemingly dissimilar
words loquacious, colloquium, and elocution all come from the root word loq,
meaning “to talk.” Knowing this connection may make it easier for children
to remember the words. Words stories can stay with a student for a long
time. In high school, I learned that sanguine, meaning “cheerfully optimis-
tic,” comes from the same root as sanguinary, meaning “involving blood-

112

STAHL

TABLE 5.1

Prefixes and Suffixes That Account for Approximately 80% of Affixed Words

% of All Prefixed

%■ of All Suffixed

Prefixes

Words ( Cumulative )

Suffixes

Words ( Cumulative )

1. Un- (not)

-S, -es

2. Re- (again)

-ed

3. In-, im-, il-, ir- (not)

-ing

4. Dis (

-•y

5. En-, em-

-Er, -or (agent)

6. non

-Ion, -tion,
-ation, ition

7. In-, im- (in)

8. over-

9. mis-

10. sub-

1 1 . pre-

Note. Adapted from Tables 1 and 2 of White, T. G., Sowell, f, & Yanagihara, A. (1989).
Teaching elementary students to use word-part dues. The Reading Teacher, 42(4), 302-308 with
permission of the International Reading Association (© 1989).

shed or death.” Both words come from the medieval theory of “humors,”
which held that a person’s health was controlled by a series of hu-
mors — black bile (melan-), white bile, blood, and phlegm. Thus, we have
melancholy, bilious, sanguine and phlegmatic, words that originally described
an overabundance of one humor over the others.

CONCLUSION: WORD MEANINGS AND WORLD MEANINGS

To have an impact on children’s comprehension, vocabulary teaching
should be rich, intensive, and full of interesting information. It needs to
cover a great many words and cover them well. Active vocabulary instruc-
tion should permeate a classroom, not just be a brief activity to do before
reading a basal story. Discussion of words is discussion of knowledge of the
world, and knowledge of the world is knowledge of who we are and where
we stand in the world. Vocabulary instruction is not just one of several im-
portant aspects of reading, it is a gift of words, a gift that one gives gener-
ously to others.

5. FOUR PROBLEMS WITH TEACHING WORD MEANINGS

113

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Wiles, D. (2001). Freedom summer. New York: Atheneum.

Chapter

Bringing Words to Life in Classrooms
With English-Language Learners

Margarita Calderon
Johns Hopkins University

Diane August
August and Associates

Robert Slavin and Daniel Duran

Johns Hopkins University

Nancy Madden and Alan Cheung
Success for All Foundation

Large and growing numbers of students in the United States come from
homes where English is not the primary language. According to the Na-
tional Center for Educational Statistics (2002), the number of English-lan-
guage learners continued to increase in both absolute terms and as a
percentage of total student enrollment in 2000-2001. An estimated
4,584,946 English-language learners were enrolled in public schools, rep-
resenting approximately 9.6% of the total school enrollment in
prekindergarten through Grade 12. Since the 1990-1991 school year, the
English-language learner population has grown approximately 105%,
whereas the general school population has grown by only 1 2%. However,
the schools and, more generally, the educational system have not been ade-
quately prepared to respond to the rapidly changing student demograph-
ics. Such conditions combine and probably interact to produce educational
outcomes that demand attention. For example, for the 4 1 State Educational

115

116

CALDERON ET AL.

Agencies (SEAs) reporting on both the participation and the success of Eng-
lish-language learners in English reading comprehension — the ultimate
purpose of reading — only 18.7% of the students assessed scored above the
state-established norm. 1

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

A major determinant of reading comprehension for all children is vocabu-
lary. Cunningham and Stanovich (1997) reported that vocabulary assessed
in first grade predicted over 30% of reading comprehension variance in
eleventh grade. Students reading in their first language have already
learned on the order of 5,000 to 7,000 words before they begin formal read-
ing instruction in schools (Biemiller & Slonim, 2001). However, sec-
ond-language learners typically have not already learned a large store of
oral language vocabulary in the second language (Singer, cited in Grabe,
1991). Even middle to high socioeconomic status and use of English in ad-
dition to a first language (in this case Spanish) does not appear to mitigate
lack of second-language vocabulary knowledge for English-language learn-
ers (Umbel, Pearson, Fernandez, & Oiler, 1 992). The researchers tested the
receptive vocabulary of Hispanic children in Miami in both English and
Spanish with the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) and its Spanish
equivalent, the Test de Vocabularioen Imagenes Peabody (TVIP). The 105
bilingual first graders, of middle to high socioeconomic status relative to
national norms, were divided according to the language spoken in their
homes (English and Spanish or Spanish only). Both groups performed near
the mean of 100 in Spanish, but the English and Spanish group scored
more than one standard deviation higher in English than the Spanish-only
group. However, both groups were significantly below the mean of the
norming sample in English, even when the socioeconomic status of the
English-language learners was higher than that of the norming sample.
Poor vocabulary is a serious issue for English-language learners. Although
skilled readers can tolerate a small proportion of unknown words in a text
without disruption of comprehension, comprehension is disrupted if the
proportion of unknown words is too high. A series of studies underscores
that vocabulary learning results in comprehension gains and improvement
on semantic tasks. For example, McKeown, Beck, Omanson, and Perfetti
(1983) found that vocabulary instruction had a strong relation to text com-
prehension in fourth graders.

'Currently available state data do not offer a clear picture of English-language learners’
reading achievement. First, assessment tools and testing policies differ from state to state and
even within districts within a state. Furthermore, data are gathered for different grade levels.

6. BRINGING WORDS TO LIFE

117

Findings from the National Reading Panel (2000) indicate that various
methods improve students’ vocabulary, depending on the age of the chil-
dren. First, computer use bolsters vocabulary learning when compared with
traditional methods (Davidson, Elcock, & Noyes, 1996). The National
Reading Panel also cited the keyword method as having a substantial re-
search base. Although it may significantly augment recall, the method
works best with particular kinds of words and requires substantia] teacher
effort (Kamil 8c Hiebert, chapter 1, this volume). Other methods have also
proven successful. Vocabulary can be acquired through incidental exposure
(Schwanenflugel, Stahl, & McFalls, 1997) or reinforced through stu-
dent-initiated talk and active participation during storybook reading
(Dickinson & Smith, 1994; Drevno, Kimball, Possi, Heward, Gardner, &
Barbetta, 1 994; Senechal, 1 997). A focus on high-frequency words and mul-
tiple, repeated exposures to vocabulary is important, as is the application of
words to multiple contexts (Daniels, 1994; Leung, 1992; Senechal, 1997).
Some studies (Brett, Rothlein, & Hurley, 1996; Carney, Anderson,
Blackburn, & Blessing, 1984; Wixson, 1986) suggest that preinstruction of
vocabulary facilitates vocabulary acquisition and comprehension. Others
advocate restructuring materials or procedures (e.g., substituting easy for
hard words in a passage, teaching what components make a good defini-
tion, selecting relevant words for vocabulary learning, conducting
group-assisted reading in dyads rather than unassisted groups) in order to
bolster comprehension (Scott & Nagy, 1997). Stahl (1983) reported that a
mix of contextual and definitional approaches work better than either ap-
proach alone, whereas Margosein, Pascarella, & Pflaum, 1982) found spe-
cific gains from a single approach (semantic mapping over context-rich or
target-word treatment). Several other researchers have reported that direct
instruction in learning word meanings is helpful (Tomesen & Aarnoutse,
1998; White, Graves, 8c Slater, 1990).

Despite the importance of vocabulary to comprehension for English-lan-
guage learners, there have been only four experimental studies conducted
since 1980 examining the effectiveness of interventions designed to build
vocabulary among language minority students learning English as a soci-
etal language. The findings indicate that research-based strategies used
with first-language learners (National Reading Panel, 2000) are effective
with second-language learners, although the strategies must be adapted to
the strengths and needs of second language learners. In one study, Carlo et
al. (2004) developed, implemented, and assessed an intervention designed
to enrich the vocabulary knowledge and bolster the reading comprehen-
sion of Spanish-speaking, fifth-grade English-language learners and their
English-only peers. The participants were 254 bilingual (Spanish-English)
and monolingual English-speaking children from nine fifth-grade class-
rooms in four schools in California, Virginia, and Massachusetts. The study

118

CALDERON ET AL.

employed a quasiexperimental design in which classrooms at each site were
randomly assigned to the treatment and comparison conditions. This pro-
cedure resulted in the assignment of three classes to the treatment while six
classrooms served as comparisons.

Students in the treatment groups participated in 15 weeks of instruction,
with an emphasis on 10 to 12 words per week. Vocabulary instruction lasted
for 30 to 45 minutes per day for 4 days per week, with one additional day per
week devoted to review. The vocabulary was presented thematically and in-
cluded homework assignments and a weekly test. Activities were designed
to build depth of word meaning and provide students with strategies to ac-
quire new words. In addition, activities built on students’ first-language
knowledge by teaching students to take advantage of cognate knowledge
and providing Spanish previews of the text students were to read in English.
Students in the comparison classrooms did not receive special instruction
other than that normally included in the school curriculum, although their
teachers did participate as members of school teams in professional devel-
opment activities focused on vocabulary teaching 2 years prior to the intro-
duction of the interv ention.

Students in the intervention and comparison classrooms were tested in
the fall and the spring of the academic year on a series of tests designed to
reflect the skills the curriculum taught. The assessments measured breadth
of vocabulary (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test Revised, or PPVT-R) as
well as the students’ ability to form deeper representations of word knowl-
edge (word association test), to master the vocabulary words that had been
taught (mastery test), to understand the multiple meanings of words
(polysemy production test), to analyze the morphology of words (morphol-
ogy test), and to comprehend text (cloze). The PPVT-R was used as a
covariate to reduce effects associated with diff erences in initial English pro-
ficiency and with site differences in populations being served. The mastery,
word association, polysemy, and cloze tests all showed the same general pat-
tern of results, demonstrating the impact of the intervention: The interven-
tion group showed greater gain in the course of the school year than the
comparison group.

A second experimental vocabulary study focused on presenting words
to first-grade Spanish-dominant students (Vaughn-Shavuo, 1990). In this
doctoral dissertation, students were randomly assigned to two groups.
Both groups received vocabulary instruction during a 30-minute daily
ESL class. One group worked on learning words that were presented in
random sentence contexts, while the other worked on words that were em-
bedded in meaningful narratives about which the students dictated sen-
tences. These students were also shown picture cards that illustrated the
word meanings. During 3 weeks of instruction, 31 words were presented to
each group, and by the end of the training, the experimental group

6. BRINGING WORDS TO LIFE

119

showed better ability to use the English vocabulary than did the control
group (2 1 words learned versus 9).

Perez (1981) reported on a third vocabulary study targeting 75 Mexi-
can-Anierican language minority third graders. The children received 3
months of oral instruction for 20 minutes each day, focusing on compound
words, synonyms, antonyms, and multiple meanings. The experimental
group children showed significant improvement over a control group on
the Prescriptive Reading Inventory.

In a fourth study, a method called suggestopedia was used with Span-
ish-language background third graders (Ramirez, 1986). Suggestopedia is
an alternative language learning method developed by Dr. Georgi Lozarov
in the 1970s. Lozarov believed the use of music, comfortable chairs, and soft
lighting in the classroom created levels of relaxed concentration that en-
abled students to better learn and retain new material. In the Raimirez
study, the suggestopedia procedure was applied with 1 0 new words per day.
These 10 new words were presented through scripted lessons that made use
of recordings, filmstrips, and short tests of each lesson. Students in both the
control group and the experimental group were presented with 40 words
over a 4-day period in class sessions that were 40 minutes in duration. This
teaching was delivered to three groups of 10 students each (one control
group, and two experimental groups — one that received suggestopedia,
and one that received this method without imagery training). The groups
were compared on the vocabulary section of the Metropolitan Achievement
Tests (MAT) and the Primary Acquisition of Languages Oral Dominance
measure and found to be equivalent. The two experimental groups per-
formed significantly better than the control group; moreover, the suggest-
opedia approach was found to be most successful with the students with the
highest levels of English proficiency.

The intervention described in this chapter builds on previous work on
vocabulary conducted with English-only students as well as English-lan-
guage learners. The intervention was designed for use with English lan-
guage learners who have just transitioned from native language (Spanish)
literacy instruction to English literacy instruction. It is estimated that 57%
of English-language learners are in some form of transitional bilingual pro-
gram in which they typically receive literacy and content area instruction in
their first language (LI) while learning to speak and comprehend English
as a second language (L2; August & Hakuta, 1997). Once students have ac-
quired a certain level of LI literacy and adequate listening and speaking
skills in English, they make the “transition” to English. That is, they are im-
mersed in English-only mainstream classrooms where literacy and other ac-
ademic subjects are taught in English. The transition into the mainstream
usually takes place during the second, third, fourth, or even fifth grade, de-
pending on school, district, or state policy. However, because of the No

120

CALDERON ET AL.

Child Left Behind legislation, more schools are leaning toward a second- or
third-grade transition.

To date, only two empirical studies (Calderon, Hertz-Lazarowitz, &
Slavin, 1998; Saunders & Goldenberg, 2001) have provided experimental
evidence on the best way to instruct children during the critical period of
transition. Both interventions reported in these studies focused on devel-
oping vocabulary to help students with the sudden immersion into Eng-
lish-content reading. The program developed and investigated by
Saunders and Goldenberg (2001) is a 3-year transition program imple-
mented in Grades 3-5. The 3-year design presumes that students receive a
coherent program of language arts instruction from Grades 3-5, from pri-
mary language through transitional language arts. Research results indi-
cate that this transition program does a better job of cultivating literacy
than the 3- to 6-month transition program students typically receive. Pro-
ject students scored significantly higher than nonproject students in read-
ing across Grades 3-5 on both standardized and performance-based
assessments, regardless of language. At Grade 5, when most students took
English standardized tests and all students took English performance as-
sessments, project students scored significantly higher than nonproject stu-
dents on every measure taken.

In the other study, Calderon, Hertz-Lazarowitz, and Slavin ( 1 998) inves-
tigated the Bilingual Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition
(BCIRC) program. The study was conducted in three experimental ( n =
250) and four control (n = 250) schools in El Paso, Texas. Students were
pretested with the district’s language proficiency test and posttested after
second and third grades in English reading and writing with the Texas As-
sessment of Academic Skills and the Norm-Referenced Assessment Pro-
gram for Texas standardized tests. By the end of third grade, BCIRC
students scored almost one standard deviation higher than comparison stu-
dents in reading (ES = +0.87). In this study, vocabulary was taught in the
context of reading, first with simple sequenced readers, then building up to
grade-level readers. Redundancy of vocabulary was achieved through
prereading, during reading, and postreading activities as students applied
the new words orally and in written form.

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate an intervention for chil-
dren transitioning from Spanish to English reading that was based on cur-
rent understandings of how to build vocabulary, decoding skills, and
comprehension in a second language. The intervention included coopera-
tive learning, extensive teaching of vocabulary strategies, direct teaching of
comprehension skills, many opportunities for independent reading, and so
on. The Success for All reading program (SFA; Slavin & Madden, 2001)
provided the base for the transition model but incorporated vocabulary en-
hancement strategies derived from the work of several researchers. This

6. BRINGING WORDS TO LIFE

121

study is important in that it provides a first evaluation of a promising strat-
egy to enhance Spanish-to-English transition.

METHOD

Design

The year-long study employed a matched control design. A total of eight
experimental and eight control classrooms in Texas schools participated in
the study. All experimental classrooms were in four SFA schools in two dis-
tricts. The experimental students participated in the program described
here, designed to facilitate transition from Spanish into English reading.
The control students participated in the two districts’ regular programs for
Spanish-to-English transition, which consist of a basal series and instruc-
tional approaches called readers’ workshop and writers’ workshop. Both
programs transition students at the same grade levels and devote one year
to introducing reading and writing in English. The principal goal of both
SFA and the districts’ transition programs is to have all English-language
learners ready to meet the districts’ criteria for moving into mainstream
English classes at the end of the school year.

The experimental and control schools were matched on the percentage
of English-language learners and the percentage of free and reduced lunch
eligibility (see Table 6.1). Participants in the study were predominately
socioeconomically disadvantaged, as an average of 90% received full or re-
duced lunch subsidies. All schools enrolled a high percentage of Eng-
lish-language learners, ranging from a low of 47% to a high of 76%, with an

TABLE 6.1

Characteristics of Participating Schools

% English Language
Learners

% Free and Reduced Lunch

Experimental School A

60%

85%

Control School B

67%

79%

Experimental School C

55%

93%

Control School D

47%

88%

Experimental School E

55%

90%

Control School F

76%

96%

Experimental School G

71%

96%

Control School H

54%

91%

122

CALDERON ETAL.

average of 60%. Pretests were also given to ensure the comparability of the
treatment and control groups and were used as covariates in the main anal-
yses to adjust for any initial difference between the two groups.

Participants

Subjects were 293 Spanish-dominant third-grade students enrolled in eight
elementary schools in two school districts in El Paso, Texas. The children
had been identified by their schools as “ready to begin their transition into
English.” All participants were pretested and found to be limited English
proficient and reading at a second-grade level in Spanish. Both the experi-
mental and control students had been instructed in Spanish for reading,
language arts, and content areas since kindergarten.

Overview of the Intervention

The transition intervention was implemented for a period of 22 to 25 weeks.
The implementation began at the end of October 2002 (in one case at the be-
ginning of December) and terminated at the end of March 2003, when Texas
Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) testing preparation began.

The experimental intervention was an adaptation of the Success for All
reading program. In this approach, students worked in four-member learn-
ing teams, using a series of minibooks containing phonetically decodable
texts, children’s literature, and ancillary student and teacher materials
(Slavin & Madden, 2001). In fast-paced 90-minute lessons, students learned
letter sounds, sound blending, sight words, vocabulary, and comprehension
skills in English. Because students could already read in Spanish, the instruc-
tional pace for teaching English reading was rapid, spending little time on
skills common to Spanish and English but stopping to focus on areas in which
the languages differ. A major focus was on vocabulary.

Vocabulary activities were designed to build multiple literacy skills in
English, including phonological awareness, pronunciation, Spanish-Eng-
lish contrasting sounds, cognate meaning awareness, word reading, decod-
ing, fluency, grammar, reading comprehension, and writing. Vocabulary
was taught in two contexts: through the decodable books and through chil-
dren’s literature. To build word knowledge through decodable texts, DVDs
were used to preview the vocabulary. The DVDs contained skits that illus-
trated key vocabulary appearing in the decodable books. However, 30 min-
utes per day of oral language activities revolving around grade-level
children’s literature provided the primary method for building children’s
vocabulary knowledge. Teachers pretaught vocabulary, developed vocabu-
lary through “text talk,” and reinforced vocabulary through oral language
activities occurring after the story had been read. Students listened to and

6. BRINGING WORDS TO LIFE

123

discussed children’s literature (50 books during the year) and worked on
daily oral language activities to build word knowledge for key words ap-
pearing in the children’s literature. Cynthia Rylant’s (1993) The Relatives
Came and John Burningham’s (2001 )John Patrick Norman McHennessy: The
Boy Who Was Always Late illustrate the kind of literature that was used in the
program. To illustrate the nature of instruction in this chapter, we have
chosen Burningham’s text to elaborate on the activities of the program. Ex-
cept for a final set of grammar activities, the complete lesson with which
teachers were provided to teach this text is provided in the appendix.

Selecting Words to Teach and the Methods to Teach Them. The selec-
tion of words to preteach was based on research by Beck and colleagues
(Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002), as well as on the work of the Vocabulary
Improvement Project (Carlo et al., 2004) and the BCIRC study (Calderon et
al., 1998). Beck and colleagues have developed a systematic method of se-
lecting vocabulary to teach to students. Words are grouped into three tiers,
and words in Tier Two are those targeted for instruction. Tier One words
are words English-speaking students already know; Tier Three words are
words students are unlikely to know, but that are not frequently used across
a variety of domains.

We borrowed the tiers concept from Beck and colleagues as a means of
categorizing words. However, with English-language learners, we have
found it necessary to modify the approach. We take it for granted that na-
tive English speakers know most Tier One words, but this is not the case
for English-language learners. Many Tier One words that are unknown
to English-language learners may be key to the comprehension of a pas-
sage. Furthermore, English-language learners may not have sufficient
background to use context to figure out the words that Beck et al. have
designated as Tier Three Consequently, we developed a set of selection
criteria for choosing words. The four criteria include: (a) the nature of
the word (i.e., is it concrete? Can it be demonstrated?); (b) cognate sta-
tus; (c) depth of meaning (i.e., the number and richness of the way a word
is used); and (d) utility.

In identifying critical Tier One words, we recognize that English-lan-
guage learners typically know the concept in their primary language. They
simply may not know the label in English. For example, a Tier One word
might be butterfly. English-language learners may not know this word, but it
can be easily taught by pointing to a picture of a butterfly during text discus-
sion. Another Tier One word might be bug. Words like bug (insect) or march
(move like a soldier) may be easily instructed during text discussion by
pointing to a picture of a bug or marching in place, but because the words
are polysemous, they merit further instruction. This can be accomplished in
oral language activities that follow the text discussion.

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CALDERON ET AL.

There are some Tier One words that cannot be demonstrated and are
not polysemous but that students will need to know (e.g., uncle). A simple
explanation of the word’s meaning during the story reading will suffice, or
if the teacher and students are bilingual, a translation is sufficient. Idioms
and everyday expressions (e.g., “make up your mind”; “let’s hit the
books”; “once upon a time”) are also composed of Tier One words, and
teachers will need to explain their meanings to students. Other Tier One
words are cognates (e.g., family /familia; preparation/preparacion). The cog-
nates in this category consist of words that are high-frequency words in
Spanish and English; they do not require substantial instruction because
students know the word meanings in Spanish. In this case, the teacher
merely states the English cognate and students provide the Spanish cog-
nate or the teacher provides the English cognate and students provide
both the English word and Spanish cognate. False cognates also need to be
pointed out by the teacher and the correct translation given. For example,
assist is usually translated as asistir, but the correct translation is atender,
and attend means asistir; other examples of words that are false cognates
are: rope/ropa; embarrassed/ embarasada.

Tier Two words include: (a) words that have importance and utility (i.e.,
they are characteristic of mature language users and appear frequently
across a variety of domains); (b) words that have instructional potential (i.e.,
they can be worked with in a variety of ways so that students can build rich
representations of them and their connections to other words and con-
cepts); and (c) words that provide precision and specificity in describing
ideas for which students already have a basic conceptual understanding.
These words often appear in grade-level texts. Tier Two words that are de-
monstrable may not need elaborate discussion. In addition, many Tier Two
words are cognates (in this tier they are often high-frequency words in
Spanish and low-frequency words in English). Children whose first lan-
guage shares cognates with English will have a head start with these words
(e.g., coincidence! coincidencia, industrious/industrioso, fortunate /afortunado) be-
cause they will know both the concept and an approximation of the label in
English. (For children whose first language is not Latin-based and does not
share cognates with English, such a procedure needs to be adapted.) The
Tier Two words that should be targeted for preteaching include words that
cannot be demonstrated and are not cognates.

Furthermore, although Beck et al. (2003) focus on Tier Two words and
not Tier Three words, many English-language learners may not have the
background to use context to figure out the rare, context-bound words of
Tier Three. Tier Three words that are not demonstrable or cognates should
be translated or briefly explained in the first language but not elaborated in
English. They are low-frequency words and are not encountered across a
multitude of domains.

6. BRINGING WORDS TO LIFE

125

Preteaching Vocabulary. For this intervention, the project staff se-
lected the vocabulary for each of the 50 children’s literature books that were
used in the teacher read-alouds throughout the program. The criteria that
were developed in the previous section were used to select words.

Activities were then developed for each of the chosen words by the pro-
ject staff. The basis for these activities was the vocabulary process developed
by Beck and colleagues (Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002). Second-lan-
guage strategies were integrated with the basic preteaching process to
achieve five steps.

First, the teacher says a target word in both English and Spanish; second,
teachers provide a definition of the word based on its use in the story; third,
they provide another example of the word by using it in a sentence whose
context clarifies the word’s meaning; fourth, they ask students to repeat the
word several times to build a phonological representation of the word; and
fifth, they have students become “engaged with the word” through oral lan-
guage activities. The fifth activity can be carried out with a partner. For in-
stance, the teacher might say, “Tell your partner about a time you were
mesmerized .” After a minute of sharing with partners, the teacher may ask
two or three students to share what their partner said.

The cycle of preteaching vocabulary is demonstrated in the appendix for
the six key vocabulary words for the book John Patrick Norman McHennessy:
The Boy Who Was Always Late (Burningman, 2001) — satchel, snapped, tore,
swept, cling, and lie.

Developing Vocabulary Through Discourse Around Text. Vocabulary
is also developed through ongoing text-related dialogue between the
teacher and students during the read-alouds. Teachers stop at specific in-
tervals in the text to elicit discussion. Different methods are used depend-
ing on the nature of the word, its cognate status, its depth of meaning, and
its utility. Concrete words are demonstrated; for cognates, teachers tell
students the cognate in Spanish or ask students for the English cognate.
Tier Two words that have been pretaught are reinforced through ques-
tions that require students to use and understand the words. Teachers
provide Spanish definitions of Tier Three words (if they cannot be dem-
onstrated) or simple English explanations. Teachers also use different
kinds of questions to encourage vocabulary development. They ask initial
questions that prompt students to talk about ideas rather than constrained
questions that elicit one-word responses, and they use follow-up questions
to help students develop their likely sparse first responses. They also use
questions to help students move beyond using pictures and background
knowledge in these responses and to encourage more elaborated re-
sponses tied to the text. An example of such a question with John Patrick
Norman McHennessy: The Boy Who Was Always Late can be seen in the appen-

126

CALDERON ET AL.

dix: What are the consequences for John Patrick? Have you ever invented
excuses/escusas because you were late?

Oral Language Activities to Build Vocabulary. The language devel-
opment activities that follow the story are based in large part on the story’s
words. Different stories lend themselves to different kinds of activities. But
the key focus is on developing conceptual knowledge about the words and
reinforcing labels for the word. This is also an opportunity for students to
use the word in extended discourse through story retelling or in a different
context such as in story mapping or dramatization. The section usually
closes with written exercises for reinforcing word meaning and using multi-
ple meanings of words in sentences.

There are also ongoing activities designed to review words from previous
stories and help students listen for and use words outside of the language
arts class. Word Wizard is used to promote word use outside of class. The
children take home their Partner Activities Book with a Word Wizard page
where they can record the target vocabulary they hear outside of class. The
Partner Books also contain activities to conduct with parents, older siblings,
or for self-review, such as additional passages with the vocabulary learned
that day through the DVDs and their decodable books. The classroom has
word walls that contain pictures of the words and labels or words organized
by category. Student writing is posted, as are posters containing reminders
about grammar, syntax, and cognates. Examples of all these activities can
be found in the appendix.

Assessment

Children in both conditions were pretested in fall 2002 and posttested in
spring 2003. Children were pretested at their schools during the period
from November 4 to November 24, 2002. At pretest, children were admin-
istered four subtests of the Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery-Re-
vised (WLPB-R) in both Spanish and English forms: Picture Vocabulary,
Letter-Word Identification, Word Attack, and Passage Comprehension.
The WLPB-R is a comprehensive set of individually administered standard-
ized tests for measuring abilities and achievement in oral language, read-
ing, and written language. Testing sessions required, on average, 40
minutes per child for each language.

The Picture Vocabulary subtest measures the ability to name familiar and
unfamiliar pictured objects. The WLPB-R Letter-Word Identification and
Word Attack subtests were used to measure orthographic skills. In the Let-
ter-Word Identification task, the first five letter-word identification items
measure symbolic learning, or the ability to match a rebus (pictographic

6. BRINGING WORDS TO LIFE

127

representation of a word) with an actual picture of an object. The remaining
objects measure the student’s reading identification skills with isolated let-
ters and words. The student does not need to know the meaning of any of
the words presented but must be able to respond to letters or words he or
she may not have seen before. Word Attack measures the student’s skill in
applying phonic and structural analysis skills to the pronunciation of unfa-
miliar printed words. The subject reads aloud letter combinations that are
linguistically logical in English, but either do not form actual words or form
low-frequency words. The first four Passage Comprehension items are pre-
sented in a multiple-choice format that requires the participant to point to
the picture represented by a phrase. The remaining items measure the par-
ticipant’s skill in reading a short passage and identifying a missing key
word. The WLPB-R was normed on a national sample of children, and the
internal reliability for the four subtests used is 0.863, 0.918, 0.902, and
0.914, respectively.

Children were posttested at the end of third grade during the period
from May 1 to May 20, 2003. Although children were posttested using the
same measures used during the pretests, for the purposes of this chapter we
report on the picture vocabulary subtest of the WLPB-R in English and
Spanish forms.

Examiners for all assessments were full-time, experienced bilingual test-
ers hired and trained by the Johns Hopkins University in El Paso, Texas.
Testers were unaware of the assignment of children to condition.

Attrition

Attrition resulted in the loss of 54 students (20 in the experimental group
and 27 in the control group) between fall 2002 and spring 2003. This gen-
erated a sample size of 239 for the present analyses of effects on achieve-
ment outcomes. Attrition for each school is summarized in Table 6.2. As
Table 6.2 shows, the attrition rate for both groups was similar — 17% in the
experimental group and 15% in the control group.

Analyses

The study employed a series of analyses of covariance (ANCOVA) with con-
dition as the independent variable, the WLPB-R vocabulary subtest as the
dependent measure, and both Spanish and English pretests as covariates to
adjust for initial difference between the treatment group and the control
group. Thus analyses for Spanish and English Picture Vocabulary used both
Spanish and English Picture Vocabulary at pretests as covariates.

128

CALDERON ET AL.

TABLE 6.2

Attrition for Participating Schools

Number of Participants

Experimental Group

Fall 2002

Spring 2003

Left school

School A

School C

School E

School G

Total

152

125

27 (17%)

Control Group

School B

School D

School F

School H

Total

134

114

20(15%)

RESULTS

Pretests

The results of the WLPB-R testing are summarized in Table 6.3. As the table
shows, experimental and control schools were very well matched at pretest
on the English Woodcock scales, but the Success for All students scored
somewhat higher on all four Spanish pretests.

English Posttests

After adjusting for the initial pretest difference, the experimental group
outperformed the control group on three of the four measures. The experi-
mental group scored significantly higher than the control group on Word
Attack (F j Ti - = 6.209, p = 0.013) with an effect size of +0.21 and Passage
Comprehension (F y 233 = 3.753 ,p = 0.05) with an effect size of +0.16. The
difference between the experimental and the control group scores was mar-
ginally significant on Picture Vocabulary ( F , 233 — 3.042, p = 0.08) with an
effect size of +0.1 1. No significant difference was found between the two
groups on the Letter-Word Identification subtest.

Spanish Posttests

For the Spanish subtests, the experimental group scored significantly higher
than the control group in Letter-Word Identification (F , = 4.864,

TABLE 6.3

Effects of the Bilingual Transition Program
on English and Spanish Reading

Success for All

Control

Effect Size “

English

Woodcock

Pre

Pbst

Adi.

Post"

Pre

Post

Adi.

Post* 3

Picture Vocabulary
M

450.09

459.91

459.78

451.06

457.43

457.57

+0.11*

(19.89)

(16.57)

(20.21)

(19.51)

Passage

Comprehension

465.41

476.01

475.45

467.56

472.06

472.67

‘+0. 16**

Letter Word ID

(23.54)

(16.79)

(23.81)

(17.87)

486.96

485.18

483.13

485.09

(20.51)

472.68

(21.74)

+ 0.00

476.07

(23.19)

(22.57)

Word Attack
M

478.41

490.32

490.05

478.22

485.54

485.84

‘+0.21**

(14.63)

(14.29)

(16.29)

(19.84)

125

114

Spanish

Woodcock

Picture Vocabulary
M

500.69

499.91

497.50

491.86

492.25

494.89

+0.14*

(17.43)

(12.12)

(19.30)

(18.60)

Passage

Comprehension

486.24

488.93

486.85

479.42

484.06

486.34

+ 0.05

Letter Word ID

(8.13)

(8.64)

(9.33)

(10.18)

534.64

541.42

539.89

527.51

534.25

535.94

‘+0.26**

Word Attack

(15.35)

(15.76)

(19.32)

(15.21)

512.54

514.70

514.01

508.91

513.18

513.95

+0.00

(12.67)

(11.87)

(13.44)

(12.44)

125

114

Notes. “'Effect size = Adj. Post (Exp) -Adj. Post (control) / Unadjusted SD (control).
b Adjusted for Spanish and English Pretests. *p < .10. **p < .05.

129

130

CALDERON ETAL.

p = 0.028) with an effect size of +0.26, and scored higher with marginal sig-
nificance in Picture Vocabulary (F , s , = 2.874, p = 0.09 1 ) with an effect size
of +0.14. No statistically significant difference was found on the Passage
Comprehension and Word Attack subtests.

The effects on Spanish measures were unexpected, as the emphasis of
the program was on English reading, but the focus of the program on
building vocabulary, on Spanish cognates (and false cognates), and other
program features may have contributed to the experimental group’s su-
perior performance in Spanish. However, the more interesting impacts
were those seen on the English measures, where Success for All students
showed modest but positive effects, compared to controls, on the English
vocabulary measures.

DISCUSSION

Even with an intervention that was implemented for less than a full year,
modest positive benefits were seen on measures of English vocabulary. In
addition, gains on scales assessing Spanish vocabulary indicate that the bi-
lingual transition model may also be beneficial in promoting children’s
reading skills in their home language, even though this was not a primary-
goal of the intervention. Thus, carefully designed direct vocabulary instruc-
tion improves vocabulary knowledge. The evaluation reported here is a first
step in a program of research that we expect will produce an effective,
replicable program to build word knowledge in English and facilitate Span-
ish-to-English transition following a Spanish reading program. For the
2003-2004 year, we are carrying out a second evaluation involving at least
30 weeks of implementation of the transition intervention, this time includ-
ing approximately 600 second-, third-, and fourth-grade students.

As we extend on this line of research, we are particularly cognizant of in-
formation learned from follow-up interviews with the teachers who partici-
pated in this project. Teachers reported that having the lessons fully
developed was critical to the implementation. They mentioned that it
would have been an insurmountable task to preselect vocabulary from the
different tiers, sort words into the appropriate categories, and create a vari-
ety of strategies for teaching each word. Teachers also reported that without
lessons, they probably would have selected an inappropriate meaning or
would have been unsure of how to state the meaning.

Even though this study was an initial effort, the research findings, ob-
servations, and follow-up interviews with teachers suggest directions for
policymakers and practitioners. First, this study underscores the critical
role of vocabulary, if patterns of English-language learners’ comprehen-
sion are to be altered. The students in the SFA transition program outper-
formed students in the control group on reading comprehension.

6. BRINGING WORDS TO LIFE

131

verifying a pattern with English-language learners that has been reported
with native English speakers (McKeown et ah, 1983; National Reading
Panel, 2000; Stahl, 1983).

Second, vocabulary must be explicitly taught to English-language learn-
ers if they are to catch up to grade-level standards. At the same time, this vo-
cabulary instruction must be part of a comprehensive language/literacy
program. Explicit instruction on word knowledge consisting of phonemic,
phonological, and morphemic awareness, decoding, and understanding of
the multiple meanings of the words should occur in the context of teaching
reading and using texts.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Adapted from Calderon, M., August, D., Slavin, R.E., Cheung, A., Madden,
N., & Duran, D. (2004). The evaluation of a bilingual transition program for Suc-
cess for All: A technical report. Baltimore, MD: Johns Elopkins University,
Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk.

APPENDIX

STaR Story: John Patrick Norman McHennessy — the Boy Who Was Always Late

by John Burningham

Materials John Patrick Norman McHennessy — the Boy Who Was Always Late

Preparation:

• Highlight or underline with yellow all the key vocabulary; with pink all
the cognates; with green all the receptive vocabulary and/or advanced
vocabulary.

• Insert the labels with questions on the appropriate pages.

Story Summary: This story is about a boy named John Patrick Norman
McHennessy. Strange things happen to him on the way to school which
make him late. His teacher does not believe him and he is punished.
Finally, a strange thing happens to the teacher and John Patrick Nor-
man McHennessy tells him that he does not believe him!

Vocabulary Summary for Teachers

Key Vocabulary: satchel (2), snapped (5), tore (10), swept (19), cling
(21), lie (7)

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CALDERON ET AL.

Cognates or approximations: crocodile/cocodrilo (2), lion/leon (10),
manage/manejar, ingeniarse (13), gorilla/gorila (28)

Receptive/advanced vocabulary: bushes (10), tidal wave/oleada (19)

Multiple-meaning words: drain (2), lie (7)

Idioms: set off (1), hurried off (9), on time (26)

Preteaching Vocabulary

Satchel / mochila(2)

A bag carried over the shoulder

Say satchel three times: satchel, satchel, satchel

Let’s open our invisible satchels. What can we put in there?

Say: I’m putting in my satchel.

Snapped / estallo (5)

1. To speak sharply or angrily. Please don’t snap at me!

2. A sudden cracking sound. The alligator’s mouth closed with a snap.
Say snap three times: snap, snap, snap

Let’s do ‘my turn, your turn’ — do what I do and say what I say:

Snap your fingers 3 times.

Snap your arms like an alligator

Step on the branch and make a big snap!

Don’t snap at me or I’ll cry.

Tore / rompid, desgarro (10)

To make a hole by pulling. The nail on the door tore my jacket.

Say tore three times: tore, tore, tore

Have you ever torn your clothing on something?

Swept / armstro, barrio (19)

1. To move or carry rapidly and forcefully. The fire swept through the
building.

2. To clean or clear away with a broom or a brush.

Say swept three times: swept, swept, swept

Let’s do ‘my turn, your turn’ — do what I do and say what I say:

Let’s sweep this floor clean.

The river swept my plastic boat.

The surprise swept me off my chair.

Sweep the dust off your desk.

6. BRINGING WORDS TO LIFE

133

Cling / pegarse (21)

To stick to or to hold on to something or someone very tightly. He was
very scared so he wanted to cling to my arm throughout the movie.

Say cling three times: cling, cling, cling

Answer the following questions in complete sentences.

Does a spider cling to its web?

Does a baby cling to its mother?

What clings to your clothes?

Lie / mentira, mentir, recostado, estar en una parte (7)

1 . To get into or be in a flat, horizontal position. Let’s all lie down on the
floor.

2. A statement that is not true. I told a lie yesterday.

3. To say something that is not true. I lied about my age. I’m really 25
years old.

Say lie three times: lie, lie, lie

I’m going to say some things. If it’s a lie, say “that’s a lie;” if it’s the
truth, say “that’s the truth.”

Our school principal is 15 years old.

I am lying on the grass right now.

My students love to learn.

I have never told a lie.

My students love to read.

Before Reading: Story Preview

Student Background Knowledge:

Show the two pages before the story starts, where John Patrick has writ-
ten “I must not tell lies ...” Ask the students: What do you think this is?
Have you ever had to write something many times like this? What do you
think happened?

During Reading: Interactive Story Reading

Begin reading the story, stopping after the page number indicated to ask
predictive, summative, and inferential questions that will motivate students
to interact with the story. In addition, you will be making the key vocabu-
lary, idioms, cognates, and receptive vocabulary comprehensible. We have
scripted the key words and receptive vocabulary, but you should let the
students know which words are cognates and also explain the idioms to
them. Remember to ask the questions after you have read the page.

134

CALDERON ET AL.

Page 1:
Page 2:
Pgs. 4-5:
Page 6:
Page 7 :

Page 10:
Page 13:
Page 15:
Page 16:
Page 17:

Pgs. 18-19:
Page 2 1 :
Page 23:
Page 25:

Pgs. 26-27:

Page 28:
Pgs. 29-30:

What do you think is the “road to learn?”

What do you think John Patrick has in his satchel?

How did John Patrick get his satchel back?

Did John Patrick tell his teacher the truth?Will his teacher believe him?

What was the consequence for John Patrick? Have you ever invented
excuses/escusas because you were late?

What happened the next day on his way to school?

What do you think the consequences will be for being late again?

Is he in trouble again? What is his punishment this time?

Repeat what he has to say.

John Patrick is on his way to school again. Turn to your partner and
predict what might happen on his way to school.

What happened this time?

What do you think the consequences will be this time?

What does John Patrick have to do this time? Repeat what he must write.

Turn to your partner and make another prediction about what’s
going to happen this time.

Now the teacher is asking John Patrick for help. Why do you think
he said that to the teacher?

Did anyone predict something like this w'as going to happen?

So, what did John Patrick learn?

After Reading:

• Fact Review and Story Structure Review: Encourage students to recall
the story elements by retelling the story in sequence. Create a se-
quence chain such as the following on the overhead or board, and re-
cord the students’ contributions.

Story Critique

6. BRINGING WORDS TO LIFE

135

Did you like the story? [use words like: fantastic, exceptional, exciting,

mediocre because ...]

What did you like about this story?

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Chapter

Sustained Vocabulary-Learning

Strategy Instruction

for English-Language Learners

Marfa S. Carlo
University of Miami

Diane August

Center for Applied Linguistics

Catherine E. Snow

Harvard Graduate School of Education

Data collected for the National Assessment of Educational Progress dur-
ing the years 1994-2000 show a difference of approximately 25 points in
reading between fourth-, eighth-, and tenth-grade students who routinely
speak a language other than English at home and students who speak only
English at home (Campbell, Hombo, & Mazzeo, 2000). Research address-
ing differential outcomes in school performance of linguistic minority
and majority children has taught us that explanations for these differ-
ences must address a complex set of factors including, but not limited to,
differences in socioeconomic, linguistic, cultural, and sociopolitical cir-
cumstances. We know of the overrepresentation of language minority
children in high poverty schools, in chronically low-achieving schools,
and in communities with low levels of formal education and low levels of
economic resources of the type that translate into access to artifacts and
experiences that are valued by schools. We know also that amid this pic-
ture of seeming deficit there exists a wealth of individual, family, and corn-

137

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CARLO, AUGUST, SNOW

munity resources that enrich the lives of language minority children, but
in ways that are not often captured by indicators of educational attain-
ment. This is so because, by design, the intellectual and social resources of
a particular minority group do not form part of the set of core values and
knowledge targeted by most mainstream assessments of learning, which
attempt to reflect the values and knowledge of a majority.

In this chapter we describe an instructional intervention that addresses
the English instructional needs of English-language learners (ELLs). This
intervention, which we refer to as the Vocabulary Improvement Project
(VIP), uses what ELLs do know — their first language — as a starting point of
instruction. Specifically, this vocabulary intervention teaches children
about academic English words while using their conceptual knowledge of
these words in Spanish as a springboard to new learning. Before describing
this intervention in depth and then the results of a reanalysis of data in
which we considered long-term effects of the study, we provide an overview
of why this aspect was chosen.

ISSUES OF VOCABULARY AND NATIVE SPANISH SPEAKERS
READING IN ENGLISH

Previous work (Garda, 1991; Nagy, 1997; Verhoeven, 1990) suggests that
one major determinant of poor reading comprehension for English-lan-
guage learners is low vocabulary. Lack of knowledge of the lower frequency
academic words encountered in textbooks impedes reading comprehen-
sion. This situation is elegantly illustrated in Garda’s (1991) account of
Spanish-speaking children’s think-alouds while completing a standardized
reading assessment. In one telling example, a student in the study named
Evita was asked about her understanding of the word handicap in the stem of
the standardized reading item, “A serious handicap for growth in trade
is....” Evita explained that “the handicapped can’t go through there”
(Garda, 1 99 1 , p. 383), indicating that to her this word functioned as an ad-
jective and referred only to people. With such an understanding of the
word, it is little wonder that Evita missed this item.

This example illustrates the reading difficulties created by lack of breadth
and depth of English vocabulary for ELLs. Lack of familiarity with a high
proportion of the vocabulary in text reduces opportunities for productive
contextual analysis. Likewise, unfamiliarity with less frequent meanings of
words with multiple meanings, coupled with lack of awareness that many
English words are polysemous, leads to faulty interpretations of text.

Given that the vocabulary difficulties of ELLs can stem from lack of
breadth of English vocabulary (not knowing as many English words as their
English speaking peers) as well as depth (not knowing as much as they need
to know about the words that they do know), a short-term intervention.

7. SUSTAINED STRATEGY INSTRUCTION

139

from all indications in previous research, does not appear to be the solution
(Garcia, 2000; Hart & Risley, 1995; Verhallen & Schoonen, 1993). Like-
wise, given what we know about the inefficiency of direct vocabulary instruc-
tion relative to the magnitude of vocabulary growth of school children,
which Nagy and Anderson ( 1 984) estimate to be around 3,000 words annu-
ally, it is unlikely that interventions that only teach word meanings will close
the vocabulary gap between ELLs and their English-speaking peers.
Rather, ELLs require interventions that strengthen their ability to apply
strategies for independent vocabulary learning as well as provide direct in-
struction in word meanings.

THE VOCABULARY IMPROVEMENT PROJECT

The development effort that underlies VIP has addressed two components
in particular: (a) a curriculum and (b) an instructional routine. We begin
here with the curriculum because it involves the selection of words and also
the kinds of knowledge about words that students require. For example, be-
cause developing morphological connections across words was a critical
part of the goals for students, the instructional routine needed to be de-
signed to include activities that support this goal.

The project has a third component — professional development — that
is essential to student success. However, as the uniqueness of the project
lies in the vocabulary curriculum and instructional routine, the profes-
sional development component is not described as fully as the other two
components in this chapter.

Research and development of the curriculum and the instructional rou-
tine have been conducted in a two-stage process. Both stages occurred in
the same schools in three school districts across the country and, in some
cases, with the same students over a 2-year period. In Study One, the curric-
ulum and instructional routine were implemented with fourth-graders and,
in Study Two, fifth-graders (some of whom had been part icipants in Study
One as fourth-graders). The number of students who participated in the
two studies is presented in Table 7.1. We describe the curriculum and in-
structional routine for Study One as well as the influence of these compo-
nents on student achievement first, followed by a short description of Study
Two where adjustments were made to the curriculum and instructional rou-
tine to make them more challenging for fifth graders.

Study One

As shown in Table 7.1, 259 students participated in the first study, which
consisted of 10 lessons. A “lesson” consisted of eight components that oc-
curred for 30—45 minutes in daily sessions on 4 days of each of 2 weeks. For

140

CARLO, AUGUST, SNOW

TABLE 7.1

Number of Participants in Two Studies

Language Proficiency

Monolingual
(English-Only speakers)

English Language Learners
(Native Spanish Speakers )

Experimental Comparison

Experimental

Comparison

Study One: Grade 4

108

Study Two: Grade 5
only

Study Two: Grade 5
& previous Grade 4)

seven of the sessions, students participated in learning and instructional ac-
tivities. The eighth session involved an assessment of content that had been
covered over the lesson. Four lessons developed new content, whereas ev-
ery fifth week was devoted to review of the previous 4 weeks’ target words.

Curriculum. The VIP curriculum aims to develop a deeper and richer
understanding of a target word’s meanings and words and concepts related
to a target word. In addition, however, the curriculum is based on the recog-
nition that students require strategies that extend to unfamiliar words in
their reading. Prior research led us to emphasize two types of strategies.
The first consisted of strategies that support inference making of the mean-
ings of words in the context of text. Reviews by Fukkink and de Glopper
( 1 998) and Kuhn and Stahl ( 1 998) served as the foundation for this empha-
sis in the VIP curriculum.

Prior research also shows that students benefit from specific strategies that
support them in using roots, affixes (Baumann, Font, Edwards, & Boland,
chapter 9, this volume), morphological relationships (Carlisle, 2003), and
cognates (Garda & Nagy, 1993). In particular, cognates are a potentially
powerful tool for native Spanish speakers because of both the close tie of
Spanish to French, which was a source for modern English, and the direct
link between Spanish and Latin, from which many scientific words originate
(Calfee & Drum, 1986). Many native Spanish speakers learning to read in
English, however, need to be made aware of these connections through in-
struction (Nagy, Garcia, Durgunoglu, & Hancin-Bhatt, 1993).

If students are to apply strategies independently while reading texts, the
texts that are used for instruction need to contain exemplars that teachers
can use for modeling and scaffolding. We were also interested in using texts
that were appropriate for and of interest to learners. In addition, we wanted
texts that were available in Spanish as well as English, to ensure that ELLs

7. SUSTAINED STRATEGY INSTRUCTION

141

could access conceptual knowledge available to them in the first language
by using their knowledge of words that were translation equivalents to the
English words and by highlighting the presence of cognates in the texts.

The texts for the first study came from Arnold Lobel’s (1983) Fables. Fa-
bles, with their classic narrative text structure (Stein & Nezworkski, 1978),
seemed like a good starting point for a curriculum. Furthermore, Lobel’s
Fables had been translated from English to Spanish, and Spanish versions of
the text were available. A different fable with 1 0 to 12 target words was the
focus of each of the eight lessons where new content was presented. Two of
the 1 0 lessons were devoted to reviewing previously taught vocabulary and
vocabulary strategies.

For the most part, the English-language learners in our samples had suf-
ficient oral English vocabulary for everyday communication but lacked
in-depth knowledge of many words they encountered in their classroom
textbooks. Consequently, our curriculum focused on words that had high
frequencies of occurrence across content areas texts but were less frequently
encountered in oral language (Beck, McKeown & Kucan, 2002). To illus-
trate the words that were chosen, we use Lesson 7 of the VIP fourth-grade
program where the focus was around Lobel’s “The pig at the candy store.”
The 12 words chosen by the research team for that fable are listed in Table
7.2. The words and activities of other lessons can be found in Lively, August,
Carlo, and Snow (2003a).

In addition to the definitions of these target words, teachers were also pro-
vided with additional information about the vocabulary in a fable. The idiom-
atic use of language can be particularly challenging to English-language
learners, so the curricular materials also highlighted those for teachers (e.g.,
on second thought), as well as a group of words that may require attention but
not at the level of the target words (e.g., peppermints, wrappers, gumdrops).

TABLE 7.2

Words in Lesson 7 of the Fourth- and Fifth-Grade VIP Curriculum

Grade 4 Grade 5

Spanish cognates Contained, journey Common, congregate,

elevated, humanity,
monotonous, rival,
torment, ultimatum,
unfamiliar

Noncognates Discourage, glow. Arouse, dank, pitched,

halfway, heartburn, likely, battle, relief, stifling
sprout, spin, tempt,
twinkle, willpower

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CARLO, AUGUST, SNOW

Several features of the target words are dear from studying the words in
Table 7.2. First, words such as likely, contain, halfway, journey and discourage
are ones that students can be expected to encounter in content area and lit-
erary texts in the future. Second, as Nagy and Anderson’s (1984) work sug-
gests, some of the targeted words were part of fairly large semantic families.
An example of such a word is discourage (e.g. , discouragement, encourage, cour-
age, courageous). Third, many of the words had multiple meanings. The
word spin, for example, can refer to the action of a weaver or spider as well as
a particular perspective on telling or relating information or a story.
Fourth, several of the English words share a cognate with Spanish: con-
tained/contener and journey/jornada. For another group of words, the
commonly used Spanish word is a cognate for a sophisticated synonym for
the word: s p ro u ted/ germinar; likely/probable, and glowing/ candente .

Instructional Routine. The principles of vocabulary learning and
teaching that underlie the instructional routine of the intervention were
drawn from previous work on native English-speaking monolinguals and
English-language learners (e.g., Beck, McKeown, 8c Omanson, 1987;
Blachowicz & Fisher, 1996; Nagy, 1988; Nagy 8c Scott, 2000; National
Reading Panel, 2000; Stahl 8c Fairbanks, 1986). The instructional routine
that was used appears in the second column of Table 7.3.

The lesson format seen in Table 7.3 emphasized text comprehension as
well as vocabulary instruction. The emphasis on the vocabulary instruction,
as can be seen particularly in the content for sessions 3, 4, and 6, was to de-
velop a strategic stance to acquiring word meaning rather than only teach-
ing specific word meanings. This devotion of time to strategic knowledge
for understanding unfamiliar words, rather than simply to building vocabu-
lary size, was a deliberate choice. As Graves (2000) noted, students need to
know about words, not simply acquire new words, if they are to be successful
in understanding unfamiliar vocabulary in their reading.

Professional Development. The professional development had begun a
year before the implementation of the first study. In that year, both fourth-
and fifth-grade teachers and their administrators at the three sites were in-
volved in professional development activities. The curriculum materials pro-
vided to the teachers included detailed lesson plans and quasiscripted lesson
guides, as well as overhead transparencies, worksheets, homework assign-
ments, and all necessary reading materials. These materials and the words to
be taught were previewed in meetings with the teachers.

Assessments and Results. The assessments that were gathered at the
end of each lesson were useful to the research team to understand what as-
pects of students’ vocabulary were aided by the VIP curriculum and instruc-

7. SUSTAINED STRATEGY INSTRUCTION

143

TABLE 7.3

Lesson Format: Fourth- and Fifth-Grade VIP Instructional Routine

Session

Grade 4

Grade 5

• Text introduction: Prediction,
listen to teacher read aloud,
discussion of fable

• Preview for ELLs., including
listening to Spanish summary of
text, reading text, and previewing
target words

• Vocabulary introduction: Go over
target words and their definitions,
assign vocabulary review
homework, address cognates

• Story introduction, including
making predictions of text content,
reading text, participating in
“circle vocabulary” and “extract
definition” activities, assign
homework

• Expand meaning instruction
(e.g., word association); distribute
Word Wizard list

• Activities with words: (a) words in
context and (b) cloze sentences (in
peer groups)

• Instruction on Tools to Develop
Vocabulary (e.g., multiple
meanings)

• Instruction on expanding
meaning (with content such as
word roots)

• Using Words in Context (small
group activity)

■ Instruction on tools to develop
vocabulary (with content such as
using cognates)

• Instruction: Tools to develop
vocabulary (e.g., affixes)

• Word Wizard Review

• Vocabulary Assessment

tion. To establish the efficacy of the strategy overall, however, we
administered an extensive battery of tests to the VIP students and students
in classes in the same schools who had been randomly assigned to the com-
parison group.

At the beginning and the end of the VIP intervention, students were as-
sessed on: (a) the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test Revised (PPVT-R); (b)
polysemy production: generating many sentences to convey different mean-
ings of poly semous words such as ring or check; (c) three multiple-choice cloze
passages with six content words deleted at random per passage (including
some words that were targeted in the intervention); (d) word mastery: 36 tar-
get words, each with four short, multiple-choice definitions; (e) a word associ-
ation task (Schoonen & Verhallen, 1998) in which 20 target words
(approximately half from the target curriculum) were presented individu-
ally, each surrounded by six other words of which students were to chose
three to best define the word (e.g., debate has immutable associations to the

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CARLO, AUGUST, SNOW

words “rival,” “discussion,” and “opinion” but only circumstantial associa-
tions to the words “president,” “television,” and “fight”; (f) morphology: a
paper-and-pencil adaptation of Carlisle’s (1988) extract, the base task of 27
items (less than a third of which were intervention words) where students
needed to provide the base form of a derived word (e.g., discussion was stated,
followed by a lean sentence context: What did he want to ).

Large differences were found for language status (English-language
learners versus English-only children) on all the measures, as well as site dif-
ferences (i.e., Boston, Miami, and Santa Cruz, California). Impact of the in-
tervention (condition by time interactions) was found, though, only for the
Mastery test, which was designed to determine whether the children had
learned and retained the vocabulary words taught in the curriculum.

Overall, the evaluation of the first vocabulary intervention was disap-
pointing. Clear treatment effects were not found for depth of word knowl-
edge measures or for reading comprehension. However, there were
significant interactions between school and gain and between school, con-
dition, and gain, suggesting that the intervention may have been successful
in particular schools. Thus, we built on these lessons in extending the inter-
vention to the fifth grade, introducing a number of changes.

Study Two

The fifth-grade intervention was designed to be considerably more chal-
lenging in words taught and level and variety of reading materials pro-
vided. To support this increased challenge, the level of professional
support to teachers and monitoring of the implementation were increased
to minimize site differences. The full report of this fifth-grade intervention
is reported in Carlo et al. (2004). In this context, we give only an overview of
the changes in the curriculum and instruction from Study One.

Curriculum. For the fifth graders, the content of the intervention
shifted from the more familiar content of fables to a social studies topic. The
chosen topic was immigration — a topic about which we believed our stu-
dents (many of them immigrants or children of immigrants) had a vast store
of background knowledge.

This shift to a content area topic also meant that the types of texts that
students read changed in genre. Over the 1 5 lessons of Study Two, students
read four texts. All were informational in nature but took different forms:
(a) a diary, Dear America: A Journey to the New World (Lasky, 1996); (b) a de-
scriptive text, Immigrant Dids (Freedman, 1995); (c) oral histories of immi-
grant teens. New Kids in Town (Bode, 1 995); and (d) A New York Times article
entitled The New Immigrant Tide: A Shuttle Between Worlds (1998).

7. SUSTAINED STRATEGY INSTRUCTION

145

By virtue of the topic, the words were more complex. The increased com-
plexity of the words is evident in examining the words from Lesson 7 of the
fifth-grade intervention that are given in Table 7.2. (For the content of
other lessons, readers can refer to Lively, August, Carlo, and Snow (2003b).)

As with the fourth-grade curriculum, the same principles can be seen at
work in the choice of words. Once more, a substantial number of the words
are part of semantic families with several or more members such as humanity
(e.g., human, humanitarian) and unfamiliar {unfamiliarity, familiarity, familiar).
Furthermore, many words have multiple meanings such as pitched and battle.

Within a content topic such as immigration, however, some of the words
would be expected to occur with somewhat less frequency than the words in
fables. For example, ultimatum is part of a semantic family with more fre-
quent members {ultimate, ultimately), but this word will appear with less fre-
quency than many of the fourth-grade words. As many of the content area
words have Spanish cognates, in learning a word such as ultimatum (and
connecting this word to other members of the semantic family), the existing
vocabularies of Spanish speakers provide a foundation for this instruction.
The foundation that Spanish speakers bring to the content areas has also
been reported for content words in science. Bravo , Hiebert, and Pearson
(in review) examined sets of words that science educators targeted as critical
to four topics: (a) 13 general process words (e.g., investigate, observe ); (b) 25
words pertaining to soil (e.g., nutrients, decomposition); (c) 24 words pertain-
ing to shoreline habitats {survive, adaptation); and (d) 19 words pertaining to
chemical mixtures (e.g., acid, invent). In examining the cognates of these
words, Bravo et al. (2004) distinguished between high-frequency and
low-frequency cognates. The latter are Spanish/English cognates but are
more than likely unfamiliar words to Spanish students. Among the 8 1 words
that were analyzed, 50% were classified as high-frequency cognates, 24%
were low-frequency cognates, and 26% were noncognates.

Instruction Routine. Several adjustments were made to the interven-
tion for Study Two. First, the intervention was 1 5 lessons rather than the 10
lessons of Study One. Furthermore, as can be seen with the content of ses-
sions within a lesson in Table 7.3, a lesson did not have as many sessions.
The cycle of four lessons with new vocabulary followed by a review lesson
was sustained in Study Two. However, because the number of components
per lesson was condensed and because the number of lessons was increased,
the number of words targeted in Study Two increased substantially, from
approximately 100 to 180 words.

Another adaptation provided Spanish speakers with the text (in both
written and audiotaped versions) to preview in Spanish on Monday before
its introduction in English on Tuesday. The Tuesday whole-group lessons
involved presentation of the English text and target words, followed by an

146

CARLO, AUGUST, SNOW

activity that involved identifying target words in the text whose meanings
could be inferred by context. Wednesday lessons involved work in hetero-
geneous language groups of four to six where English was used. In these
peer groups, students completed two types of cloze tasks with the target
words. The first cloze task always involved sentence contexts that were con-
sistent with the theme of the instructional text. A second cloze activity in-
volved sentences that employed the target words in contexts that were
distant in theme from the instructional text, designed to help students un-
derstand and use related meanings for the target words and, in the process,
develop a sense that most words are polysemous.

The word-learning strategies aimed at supporting students’ general-
ization of vocabulary strategies and knowledge occurred on Days 4 and 5.
The content of these sessions over the 1 5-week intervention is provided in
Table 7.4. The “Expanding Meaning” lessons were intended to promote
depth of word knowledge (word association tasks, synonym/antonym
tasks, semantic feature analysis, etc.). The “Tool” lessons were designed to
promote word analysis capacities in general, not specifically to reinforce
learning of the target words.

TABLE 7.4

Expanding Meaning (Day 4 of Cycle) and “Tools”
to Develop Vocabulary (Day 5 of Cycle)

Week

Expanding Word Meaning

Tools to Develop Vocabulary

1 .

Word Roots

Cognates

Deep Processing

Affixes

Deep Processing

Idioms

Multiple Meanings

Root words

Word Guess

Posttest

Antonyms/Synonyms

Inferencing

Deep Processing

Cognates

Word Substitution

Affixes

Related Words

Root Words

10.

Word Sort

Posttest

11.

Synonyms/ Antonyms

Dictionaries

12.

Synonyms/Antonyms

Root Words

13.

Word Substitution

Cognates

14.

Deep Processing

Multiple Meanings

15.

Word Bee

Posttest

7. SUSTAINED STRATEGY INSTRUCTION

147

Additionally, Teacher Learning Communities that met on a biweekly ba-
sis were formed during the implementation of the fifth-grade intervention
to preview the materials and the instructional techniques. At these meet-
ings, practices that had worked well in previous lessons and aspects of the
curriculum that had been problematic were discussed. These meetings were
meant to provide support to the teachers throughout the implementation
of the curriculum, and information to the researchers about aspects of the
curriculum that were working well or not. The curriculum itself was not
modified as a result of the meetings with the treatment teachers.

Results. To summarize the results reported in Carlo et al. (2004), a
multivariate analysis of variance — with the five dependent measures (Mas-
tery, Word Association, Polysemy, Cloze, Morphology) and time (fall, spring)
and predicator variables of site, language status, and condition — revealed
overall between-subjects effects for site and language status. Tests of
within-subjects effects showed significant gains over time as well as a signifi-
cant interaction between gain over time and condition. These resultsjustified
analyses of each of the outcome variables individually (Myers 8c Well, 1991).

These individual analyses were conducted on five dependent mea-
sures. Scores on the PPVT were used as a covariate as the patterns on the
PPVT were higher for language status (EO students scored higher than
ELL students) and for time (spring scores were higher than fall scores)
but not for treatment. On the Mastery, Word Association, Polysemy, and
Cloze measures, the intervention group had greater gains from fall to
spring than the comparison group. These results were interpreted to
mean that the students in intervention classrooms gained knowledge of
the words that were explicitly taught as well as generative knowledge of
words as evidenced by performances on morphological structure, about
cognates, and about polysemy.

REVISITING THE DATA: THE EFFECTS OF SUSTAINED
VOCABULARY LEARNING STRATEGY INSTRUCTION

Having developed and implemented two vocabulary interventions with
ELLs, we became curious about the cumulative effects of strategy instruc-
tion on English-language learners’ learning of English words. Inasmuch as
a portion of the children in the fifth-grade Immigration intervention had
also been part of the fourth-grade Fables intervention, it became possible
for us to evaluate differences in the performance of children who had expe-
rienced the vocabulary strategy instruction for 2 consecutive years relative
to those who received only one year of strategy instruction or no instruction
at all. What follows is a report of the results of our inquiry into the effects of
sustained vocabulary learning strategy instruction.

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CARLO, AUGUST, SNOW

An Overview of School Contexts

An overview of the participants has already been provided (Table 7.1), as
have the assessments. What is critical to bear in mind is the comprehensive-
ness of the contexts in capturing the Spanish speakers in the United States.
The VIP project was carried out in three sites: (a) two California schools that
served largely working-class Mexican American children, either in bilin-
gual or in mainstream programs, (b) a Massachusetts school that served
working-class, mostly Puerto Rican and Dominican students, again in ei-
ther bilingual or mainstream classrooms, and (c) a magnet, English-me-
dium school in Virginia that served mainly working-class Spanish speakers
from the Caribbean and from Central America, native speakers of many
other languages, and middle-class English-only (EO) speakers attracted by
its excellent programs.

Findings of the Reanalyses

As mentioned previously, the fourth-grade intervention did not produce
generalizable effects on all measures or all sites. The fifth-grade interven-
tion, on the other hand, showed clear effects on our measures of target word
mastery, knowledge of polysemy, depth of word knowledge, and reading
comprehension. The only outcomes not impacted by the fifth-grade inter-
vention were PPVT performance and morphological awareness.

To consider the effects of participation in both the fourth- and fifth-
grade units on students’ vocabulary knowledge and strategies, an analyses
of covariance was conducted. This analysis controlled for English PPVT as-
sessed in spring of fifth grade. Means for the various groups of students on
the five measures appear in Table 7.5. The results suggested that learning
word analysis skills in fourth grade enhanced the value of the fifth-grade
curriculum. For most outcome measures, children who had received the
fourth-grade Fables curriculum in addition to the immigration stories cur-
riculum scored higher than children who had received only one or the
other. In addition, the fifth-grade curriculum by itself generated greater
gains than the fourth-grade curriculum by itself — an unsurprising outcome
because the fourth-grade curriculum was our pilot study and, as evaluated
at its conclusion, did not appear to affect test scores. The fifth-grade curric-
ulum was both better designed and more challenging.

Table 7.6 contains the results of t-tests comparing difference scores for
performance on each of the vocabulary and reading outcomes over the du-
ration of the fifth-grade intervention by intervention group (fifth-grade
participation only vs. fourth- and fifth-grade participation). Participation
in the fourth-grade curriculum enhanced the vocabulary learning of ELL
children while they were in the fifth-grade curriculum with regard to their

7. SUSTAINED STRATEGY INSTRUCTION

149

TABLE 7.5

Means for Five Measures: Across Time of Test, Language Group,
and Amount of Intervention

Treatment

Group

Fall

Spring

Word

Assoc.

Mastery

Cloze

Polysemy

Mor-

phology

Word

Assoc.

Mastery

Cloze

Polysemy

Mor-

phology

ELL never

34.1

13.9

8.7

7.2

42.5

35.1

16.1

8.8

8.2

54.8

EO never

43.6

21.9

13.4

12.4

87.1

45.8

23.5

13.7

12.8

100.7

ELL: Gr. 4

32.2

15.1

8.2

56.7

35.4

17.5

8.7

8.3

65.1

EO: Gr. 4

40.3

19.3

10.9

12.0

71.1

42.4

20.2

12.9

12.7

79.7

ELL: Gr. 5

35.7

16.1

8.9

7.8

55.4

40.3

23.9

11.5

10.0

69.6

EO: Gr. 5

41.2

20.6

12.0

10.6

80.4

44.4

29.5

13.9

11.9

95.7

ELL: Grs. 4, 5

35.7

15.3

9.4

8.6

55.4

40.5

25.8

11.1

11.3

78.4

EO: Grs. 4, 5

38.4

22.3

12.8

87.4

48.9

30.4

15.6

13.7

102.6

TABLE 7.6

Results of Independent Samples t Tests of Differences in Performance
Between ELL Students Receiving the 5th-Grade Intervention Only
and Those Receiving Both the 4th- and 5th-Grade Interventions

Assessment

Sig. (2-tailed)

Mean Difference

Morphology

-2.075

< .05

-6.97

Polysemy

-.702

> .05

-.39

Cloze

1.104

> .05

.74

Word Association

-.205

> .05

-.37

Mastery

-2.420

< .05

-2.76

performance on morphology and mastery assessments. The additional year
of vocabulary instruction appears to have strengthened the ELL children’s
ability to engage in structural analysis of words. It should be noted that this
effect is not a curriculum-specific effect, given that the words on this assess-
ment were not targeted in the curriculum. Also, this assessment was not ad-
ministered during the pilot year, thus satisfying any concerns that the
differences could be attributed to test practice effects. More importantly,
however, is the fact that significant growth on the morphology measure was
not found for the fifth graders, suggesting that growth in structural analysis
of words requires sustained and longer term instruction.

Understanding that many words in English have multiple meanings —
polysemy — and even serve multiple functions is a critical understanding for

150

CARLO, AUGUST, SNOW

nonnative English speakers. As is depicted in Fig. 7.1, participation for 2
years in the intervention led to a higher level of understanding of this as-
pect of English, especially for English-language learners.

It is also worth noting that the children who received 2 years of the inter-
vention learned more of the target words in the fifth-grade curriculum than
children who only got the fifth-grade intervention. This again may be inter-
preted as a general effect on vocabulary learning because none of the target
words had been instructed in the fourth grade. This suggests that the chil-
dren’s ability to learn from instruction of the target was bolstered by having
participated in the intervention the prior year.

IMPLICATIONS FOR EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE AND POLICY

The evaluation of the fifth-grade curriculum (Carlo et al., 2004) suggests
that a well-designed, challenging curriculum focusing on teaching aca-
demic words, awareness of polysemy, strategies for inferring word meaning
from context, and tools for analyzing morphological and cross-linguistic as-
pects of word meaning can improve ELLs children’s knowledge of words

FIG. 7. 1 . Average performance as a function of time of test, language group, and
amount of intervention: Polysemy.

7. SUSTAINED STRATEGY INSTRUCTION

151

and about words. Furthermore, children’s ability to comprehend texts that
have challenging words can be facilitated as well.

These gains meant making particular kinds of choices. The curriculum
introduced only 1 2 to 14 words a week. An additional 1 0 to 15 words (avail-
able in the books that were part of the intervention) were not taught in or-
der to focus instruction on strategies for using the contexts of sentences and
texts, checking the likelihood that a word had a Spanish cognate, and ana-
lyzing morphological structure for cues to meaning. This attention to strat-
egies paid off. These strategies appear to have ongoing value to all students,
including ELL students.

Furthermore, the reanalysis presented here suggests that sustained di-
rect vocabulary instruction can enhance ELLs’ ability for word learning.
The reanalysis also suggests that some aspects of ELLs’ knowledge about
words (e.g., morphological analysis) require a long-term commitment to in-
struction that develops this knowledge.

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Chapter

Classroom Practices for Vocabulary
Enhancement in Prekindergarten:
Lessons From PAVEd for Success

Paula J. Schwanenflugel,
Claire E. Hamilton

University of Georgia

Barbara A. Bradley
University of Kansas

Hilary P. Ruston
Stacey Neuharth-Pritchett

University of Georgia

M. Adelaida Restrepo

Arizona State University

As is the case with many children across the United States, one out of five
children in the state in which we live and work lives below the poverty line
(U.S. Census Bureau, 2004). This poverty puts children at risk of reading
problems (Conger, Conger, & Elder, 1997; Duncan, Young, Brooks-Gunn,
& Smith, 1998; McLoyd, 1998). Preschoolers living in poverty are more
likely to have poorly developed vocabulary and language skills (Graves,
Brunetti, & Slater, 1982; Hart & Risley, 1992, 1995; Smith, Brooks-Gunn,
& Klebanov, 1997; Washington & Craig, 1999). These depressed language
skills for poor preschoolers may not be directly related to poverty per se, but
to parent-child interaction styles, home environmental factors, and read-
ing practices associated with poverty (Adams, 1990). The national focus on

155

156

SCHWANENFLUGEL ET AL.

the provision of prekindergarten services is designed to ameliorate some of
the negative effects of poverty on children’s preacademic skills.

Given the early intervention emphasis, targeting vocabulary may be
particularly important. Young children’s vocabulary has a large impact
on early reading achievement. Children who begin school with small vo-
cabularies are more prone to have difficulty in learning to read and are at
risk for long-term reading problems (Copeland & Edwards, 1990; Snow,
Burns, & Griffin, 1999; Storch & Whitehurst, 2002), particularly with
comprehension issues (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1997). A meta-analy-
sis conducted by Scarborough (2001) found a significant correlation be-
tween young children’s receptive vocabulary and reading achievement
(Median r = .40). Thus, finding ways to enhance the vocabularies of chil-
dren who enter school with limited vocabulary seems key to improving
later reading comprehension and even early word decoding skills
(Schwanenflugel & Noyes, 1996).

The gap in children’s vocabularies upon school entry is enormous. The
vocabulary gap between high and low SES children entering kindergarten
is estimated at around 3,000 words (Hart & Risley 1995), and is even larger
later in elementary school (Baker, Simmons, & Kame’enui, 1998). For
teachers seeking to remediate these vocabulary deficits, the task is enor-
mous. Providing a multitude of opportunities for vocabulary growth within
the classroom seems necessary. Yet, existing preschool curricula provide
teachers with little guidance in how to do this.

We know that attending preschools with better general preschool class-
room quality promotes children’s preacademic skills (Bryant, Burchinal,
Lau, & Sparling, 1994), verbal cognition (Bryant et al., 1994), and language
abilities (Dunn, Beach, & Kontos, 1994), regardless of their home status.
Language experiences tend to be particularly poor in low quality preschool
classrooms (Bryant et al., 1994; Helburn, 1995). Thus, one goal for improv-
ing preschool quality is the development of teacher practices designed to
promote children’s linguistic and vocabulary grow'th.

This chapter focuses on assessing the implementation, sustainability,
and effectiveness of one effort to promote the use of classroom practices de-
signed to enhance the vocabularies of prekindergarten children through a
program we developed called PAVEd for Success (which stands for Phono-
logical Awareness and Focabulary Enhancement, two of the experimental
features of the program). Through this work, we have learned much re-
garding which classroom practices are likely to be implemented by
prekindergarten teachers. This is critical given that, although some pro-
grams have been effective in the short term, these efforts to enhance vocab-
ulary have met with teacher resistance (Lonigan & Whitehurst, 1998).
Currently, there is little to no research to guide policymakers regarding
which classroom practices for 4-year-olds show the best implementation and

8. LESSONS FROM PAVEd FOR SUCCESS

157

sustainability in the classroom, and benefits in terms of improved vocabulary
skills in children.

For our purposes here, we distinguish between implicit and explicit prac-
tices for enhancing children’s vocabularies. By implicit, we mean that the
practice encourages the growth of children’s vocabulary without being the
direct focus of the activity, such that vocabulary growth is a positive by-prod-
uct in the service of other goals; in our case, these practices were: encourag-
ing teacher-child talk (Building Bridges), and interactive storybook reading
(CAR Talk). In contrast, by explicit, we mean that word learning is the direct
focus of the activity, and both children and teachers are aware of this focus;
in our case, these practices were didactic-interactional book reading, hav-
ing vocabulary-explicit targets, and using a novel-name nameless category
(N3C) presentation strategy.

IMPLICIT APPROACHES

TO ENHANCING CHILDREN’S VOCABULARIES
Building Bridges

Both the quality and quantity of teacher talk is critical in affecting the size
and quality of children’s vocabulary. To increase the quality and quantity of
teacher talk, we developed a set of practices we called Building Bridges that
drew on both the teacher talk and the student-teacher relationships litera-
ture (Howes & Hamilton, 1992; Howes, Hamilton, & Phillipsen, 1998;
Pianta & Steinberg, 1992).

A first priority in designing the Building Bridges component of the in-
tervention was to increase the number of conversational interactions be-
tween individual students and their teachers. Individual conversations
between students and teachers are infrequent in most preschool settings
(Dickinson & Tabors, 2002; Dunn, Beach, & Kontos, 1994). However, the
amount of talk between children and adults predicts their oral language de-
velopment (Wiezman & Snow, 2001). For example. Wells (1985) found “a
clear relationship between children’s rate of language learning and the
amount of conversations they experienced” (p. 44), and of particular im-
portance was that “the child’s experience of conversation should be in a
one-to-one situation in which the adult is talking about matters that are of
interest and concern to the child” (p. 44).

To address this issue, we asked teachers to systematically engage each
child in a 5-minute conversation at least three times per week and we pro-
vided guidelines for structuring consistent times that would be “teacher
talk” or Building Bridges times. Building Bridges was loosely based on
Pianta’s (1999) intervention for remediating problematic student-teacher
relationships. Building Bridges provided students with a consistent time in

158

SCHWANENFLUGEL ET AL.

which teachers were available and open to individual interactions with stu-
dents. From a language perspective, the goal of Building Bridges was to en-
sure that all children in the classroom had opportunities to engage in
extended conversations with their teachers, but student-teacher relation-
ships were also expected to benefit.

A second goal of the Building Bridges program was to increase the rich-
ness of the conversations preschool teachers had with their students. Al-
though most verbal interactions between preschool teachers and their
students tend to be positive (e.g., praise, redirection; Wilcox-Herzog &
Kontos, 1998), those verbal interactions are frequently related to routine
matters (Dunn, Beach, 8c Kontos, 1994). Routine talk is concrete or “here
and now,” (e.g., How many do you see? What is this?). In contrast, cognitively
challenging talk asks children to interpret information and speculate or hy-
pothesize about alternative reasons (Hughes & Westgate, 1998; Kontos 8c
Wilcox-Herzog, 1997), as well as to discuss vocabulary, summarize, and
clarify one’s thinking (Dickinson & Smith, 1994). Cognitively challenging
talk in the classroom has been linked to the understanding of literate acts
(Rosemary & Roskos, 2002), emergent literacy development (Smith &
Dickinson, 1994), and growth in reading achievement (Taylor, Peterson,
Rodriguez, 8c Pearson, 2003). To make classroom conversations between
teachers and children more meaningful and cognitively challenging, we
stipulated that conversational topics should be the child’s choice rather
than instructionally related (Soundy & Stout, 2002).

CAR Talk

A second, implicit component of our vocabulary program involved in-
creased opportunities for and interaction around storybook reading. To
make it memorable for teachers, we called this set of practices CAR Talk.
Specifically, CAR is an acronym that stands for the kinds of questions we
wanted teachers to ask children while they were reading: Competence ques-
tions, Abstract thinking, and Relate talk. The aims of CAR Talk were derived
from research on storybook reading.

One aim of CAR Talk was to increase the amount of storybook reading
and the quality of interaction around the reading. Whereas the amount of
storybook reading has increased in elementary schools over the past 40
years (Austin & Morrison, 1963; Lickteig& Russell, 1993; Jacobs, Morrison,
& Swinyard, 2000), a similar change has not occurred in preschools. In 42
Head Start classrooms, Dickinson and Sprague (2001) found that in 2 days
of observation, only 65% of classrooms had any storybook reading time at
all and those that did spent an average of 2 minutes on it, with little interac-
tion around the books. (The situation was even worse for non-Head Start
classrooms serving low-income children.)

8. LESSONS FROM PAVEd FOR SUCCESS

159

Another aim of CAR Talk was enhancing the quality of interactions
around the reading, including the size of groups to whom the stories were
read. Probably the single most important aspect of storybook reading in the
development of vocabulary is the interaction that takes place between the
adult reader of storybooks and the child listeners (Biemiller, 2001). Al-
though reading books aloud straight through is correlated with low reading
achievement scores (Allison 8c Watson, 1994; Morrow, Rand, & Smith,
1995; Share, Jorm, MacLean, & Matthews, 1984), positive benefits have
been reported when teachers read interactively (Whitehurst, Arnold, Ep-
stein, Angell, Smith, & Fischel, 1994). In interactive reading (also called
dialogical or coconstructive; Dickinson 8c Smith, 1994), open-ended ques-
tions are asked throughout the storybook reading to promote high-level
participation. The book, then, merely serves as a stimulus around which a
high degree of interaction should take place.

We further specified that CAR talk be carried out in small groups no
larger than five to encourage the participation of individual children.
Reading interactively in small groups has been shown to be effective for en-
hancing vocabulary in children living in poverty (Whitehurst et al., 1994).
Children who hear stories in small interactive groups understand and recall
story elements better than children listening in large groups (Cornell,
Senechal, & Broda, 1988; Morrow 8c Smith, 1990). They are more likely to
ask their teachers the meanings of words outside of reading time. The
teachers, themselves, are more likely to use challenging vocabulary than
other teachers (Wasik & Bond, 200 1 ). One potential difficulty in implemen-
tation is that teachers seem to have difficulty arranging small-group read-
ing (Wasik & Bond, 2001; Whitehurst et al., 1994).

To implement CAR Talk, we suggested the following: (a) Prior to read-
ing a book, create a set of competence questions to allow children to prac-
tice skills they have already mastered (e.g.. Can you find the [object] in the
picture? Who said, “[phrase]”?), a set of abstract thinking questions (e.g.,
What is [character] thinking? What will happen next? How do you think
[character] feels? How are [two objects] different?), and a set of related
questions that link the text to the students’ experiences (How is [character]
the same as you? What would you do if you could [action]?); (b) put each
question on a Post-it note in the book at the proper page, so it would be
readily available when needed; (c) read to children in small-group settings.

We also focused on the value of rereading storybooks. Prevailing prac-
tices in preschools do not emphasize repeated readings. Two or more read-
ings of a book may be necessary for a significant improvement in vocabulary
(Jenkins, Stein, &Wysocki, 1984; Senechal, 1997; Stahl & Fairbanks, 1986).
However, repeated readings may not be necessary for vocabulary improve-
ment in preschoolers if the words are explained during the story (Brett,
Rothlein, & Hurley, 1996; Ewers & Brownson, 1999). However, as an im-

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SCHWANENFLUGEL ET AL.

plicit vocabulary practice, rereadings might provide some benefit in vocab-
ulary development.

EXPLICIT VOCABULARY LEARNING STRATEGIES

Despite the ubiquity of the problem of low vocabulary levels in preschool-
ers, there is remarkably little research describing explicit practices for high-
lighting the importance of vocabulary to preschoolers. Next, we describe
three explicit strategies that we believe may have some value in promoting
vocabulary development.

Didactic-Interactional Book Reading

Didactic-interactional book reading represents an effort to balance build-
ing vocabulary and comprehension. In the didactic-interactional style,
teachers often pull out the vocabulary word and provide a synonym or re-
cast to broaden the definition of the target word. This strategy may require
minimal interaction from children (children passively listen to the target
words defined or simply repeat) to more extensive expressive interaction
(children expressively use the word in response to a question or in choral
repetition; Justice, 2002). Significant gains in vocabulary have been found
for the didactic-interactional style of reading, even with minimal interac-
tion, compared to straight-through reading (Brabham & Lynch-Brown,
2002). Elley (1989) found that vocabulary learning nearly doubled for 7-
and 8-year-olds even when the reader merely stopped and provided a defi-
nition of vocabulary words immediately following their occurrence, com-
pared to straight-through reading. Reese and Cox (1999) observed that
4-year-olds with smaller vocabularies may actually do better with the didac-
tic-interactional style compared to a standard interactive style.

In our version, we merely asked teachers to stop and make note of spe-
cific new words in the context, describing relations between the words and
the context. On subsequent rereadings, they might ask children to make
some sort of response when they hear these new words they are learning.

Explicit Targeted Vocabulary

Another strategy for encouraging vocabulary growth is to create set of tar-
geted vocabulary words that are to be directly dealt with in multiple ways.
One successful intervention using this approach was by Wasik and Bond
(2001). In that study, 4-year-olds were taught 10 target vocabulary words
weekly using an integrated package of books, objects, and activities.
Children were presented with concrete representations of the words and

8. LESSONS FROM PAVEd FOR SUCCESS

161

were provided with definitions prior to book reading. Teachers then inter-
actively read two books that contained these words several times over the
week. Then, use of these target words was encouraged by classroom activi-
ties that allowed children to play with the objects. Children made expres-
sive and receptive vocabulary gains for the targeted vocabulary words, and
general gains on a standardized test of receptive vocabulary.

In our version, we asked teachers to develop a set of 1 0 target words
weekly, five from each of two books they were planning to reread during the
week. Teachers were asked to create activities that would allow children to
use the target words elsewhere in the classroom, and they themselves were
to use the words expressively in their speech. They created informal assess-
ments such as Vocabulary Bingo or Get Caught with the Word vocabulary logs,
which they were asked to use systematically.

Novel-Name Nameless Category (N3C) Presentation Strategy

Usually, between the ages of 1 and 2 years, normally developing children
experience what has been called a vocabulary spurt (Dromi, 1987), where
children move from learning a few words per week to around nine words
per day (or 3,000 words per year; Nagy & Anderson, 1984). The responsi-
bility for this spurt can be attributed to a number of universal strategies that
children develop relating to word learning. Among these is a strategy that
has been termed the novel-name nameless category strategy (or N3C; Golinkoff,
Mervis, & Hirsh-Pasek, 1994; Mervis & Bertrand, 1994) that allows for a
quick map between a novel word and an unnamed object. Golinkoff et al.
( 1 994) state that “N3C is a heuristic that moves a single hypothesis for what
the novel word might mean to the top of the stack: the novel term maps to
an unnamed object” (p. 143). The N3C principle allows 2-year-old children
to fast map nouns, verbs, and adjectives (Golinkoff, Hirsch-Pasek, Mervis,
Frawley, & Parillo, 1995).

As children develop more complex vocabulary, they are able to move be-
yond the N3C principle to more sophisticated context learning strategies.
But for prekindergartners still building basic vocabulary, the N3C is a key
vocabulary learning strategy. By nesting an unknown picture or object for a
new word among pictures or objects of commonly known things, the
teacher can evoke the N3C strategy. “Which one is an artichoke?” is likely to
elicit a correct response, when an artichoke is displayed between an apple
and a banana. Preliminary evidence indicates that the N3C strategy is an ac-
tive tool for children’s word learning even at 7 years old (Liu, Golinkoff, &
Sak, 2001; Sugimura & Maeda, 1997).

Despite the ubiquity of this strategy in research on child word learning,
there is virtually no research on its use as a teaching strategy. In our study,

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the N3C presentation format was promoted as a vocabulary introduction
strategy. Specifically, teachers were asked to introduce the five targeted
vocabulary words they had selected from their chosen text one at a time,
using props (either concrete objects or pictures) in an N3C format (e.g.,
presenting a representation of an unknown word such as radish, next to
two representations of known words such as carrot and tomato). Following
their presentation, teachers read the books from which the words were de-
rived using CAR Talk, adding a didactic focus on the words as they ap-
peared in the text. In days following the initial introduction of vocabulary,
the props for vocabulary were simply queried for their labels prior to re-
reading the books.

DESCRIPTION OF THE INTERVENTION

The vocabulary intervention was part of a larger preliteracy intervention
whose primary goal was to focus on the use of research-based practices to
improve the preliteracy skills of young children. Beyond the vocabulary
practices described here, we provided all intervention teachers with pro-
fessional development on enhanced environmental print standards, un-
derstanding the needs of limited English-proficiency preschoolers, and
teaching the alphabet. All intervention teachers received training on the
implicit vocabulary enhancement practices described earlier (CAR Talk
and Building Bridges). Another subset also received training on the ex-
plicit vocabulary enhancement practices. A subset of teachers received
training on explicit practices for teaching phonological awareness. A
secondary goal of the intervention was to rate the value added by these
stepped-up explicit variants in an otherwise literacy-rich classroom envi-
ronment. For the current purposes, we focus on evaluating the imple-
mentation and effectiveness of the vocabulary practices we have
described and compare it to controls who did not receive any of this pro-
fessional development.

Our evaluation of the vocabulary program included 425 children attend-
ing a free, lottery-funded, prekindergarten program connected with the
public school systems in three counties. Two thirds of the children received
free or reduced school lunch. Half were female, and 7% had been diag-
nosed for special education services. According to parental report, 43% of
the children were identified as African American, 5% as Asian/Asian Ameri-
can, 2% biracial, 34% European American, and 16% as Latino. Parents re-
ported 78% of children as speaking English as their first language, 17%
Spanish, and 4% some other language. Parental report indicated that 23%
of mothers had less than a high school education, 49% a high school di-

8. LESSONS FROM PAVEd FOR SUCCESS

163

ploma, 11% some college/technical training, and 18% a BA or better.
Children ranged from 4 years, 0 months of age to 5 years, 0 months at the
start of the study. Of these 425, 17 children were missing data from one
time point, so they were excluded from our evaluation.

This study was conducted in 37 prekindergarten classrooms serving
720 four-year-old children and administered by three local school dis-
tricts. Classrooms in one district participated as a control site. Each class-
room served 20 children and was staffed by one certified teacher and one
paraprofessional. Because all teaching staff are viewed as teachers by the
children, training was provided to both the teacher and the para-
professional, but the specific training components varied across class-
rooms. Teachers in 31 classrooms received training in the implicit
vocabulary practices (CAR Talk and Building Bridges). Teachers in 18
classrooms received training in the explicit Vocabulary Enhancement
practices as well. Teachers in 6 control classrooms received no training on
any of the practices.

Teachers received professional development in a 3-day session prior
to the start of the academic year. Training for the explicit Vocabulary En-
hancement practices included a discussion of the literature on vocabu-
lary in preschool children and its relationship to later literacy, and we
provided a rationale for all implicit and explicit practices based on the
research literature. We discussed why chosen practices might be relevant
for prekindergartners from different linguistic, cultural, and socioeco-
nomic backgrounds.

The training focused on practice and was rich in examples. Teachers
were given time and materials to develop their own lessons. Training ses-
sions were followed by biweekly classroom visits from PAVE preliteracy spe-
cialists during the 15-week intervention period. The specialists observed
the literacy activities being carried out in the classrooms, conferred with the
teachers regarding their implementation of the activities, and supported
teachers in the development of materials. The literacy specialist conducted
a minimum of five formal observations across the intervention period in
each classroom, reviewed lesson plans, and collected surveys from teachers
during the intervention period. Fidelity ratings were based on both the
quality of the teachers’ implementation of practices based on the formal ob-
servations and the frequency with which these practices were implemented
based on the surveys and lesson plans.

During the sustainability period of the project, teachers were asked to
continue completing the weekly surveys. At the conclusion of the project,
they were interviewed about the curricular decisions they made and why
they did or did not choose to implement or sustain a particular activity.

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IMPLEMENTATION BY TEACHERS

Implicit Vocabulary Practices

Car Talk. Teachers were most successful in implementing CAR Talk
than any of our other practices. Eighty-one percent of the teachers effec-
tively implemented CAR Talk. To be considered successful, teachers had to
use the CAR Talk questioning strategies as they read each book and provide
(story )book reading at least five times per week in a large group and three
times per week in small-group settings.

Teachers were generally comfortable with the CAR Talk questioning tech-
niques and easily adopted those into their reading. As one teacher noted:

It’s not something that we didn’t do before, I think every good teacher
questions in those ways. What I did like was some of the specific ideas about
having at least two questions on each of these levels and writing them on a
sticky note before you put it in a book to read it. That was good because it
made me have to go back and think ... and, because you had to think, you
came up with much better questions that generated more discussions.

Large-group reading was already part of teachers’ routine so they were
familiar and accepting of this structure.

Teachers expressed more concerns about small-group reading. Prior to
the intervention, most teachers defined a small group as comprising 10 chil-
dren and generally divided the class into two groups, each working with ei-
ther the teacher or the paraprofessional. We defined a small group as having
five or fewer children, which required them to adopt a new strategy. Several
classrooms accommodated for this requirement by using volunteers — foster
grandparents or students from the older grades — to read to small groups of
children. Other teachers created a small-group reading center so that they
worked with a group of five children while the other children engaged in free
choice activities (e.g., puzzles or table toys) in centers around the room.

When we spoke to teachers about the sustainability of these practices,
most teachers continued to use CAR Talk although they were less formal in
identifying specific questions prior to reading individual books. Like most
other small-group intervention programs (Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998),
this practice was largely discontinued after the intervention. Teachers felt
that it was simply too time-consuming to continue small groups and that the
interactive aspect of book reading could be maintained in a large group.
However, teachers did see value in students having had this experience
even though they discontinued it: “I think that (small group) has helped
build their confidence ... practice that we did with the small groups with
them, it might have been practice in coming to the larger group.” Thus,
they reinterpreted small-group reading as a way of transitioning children

8. LESSONS FROM PAVEd FOR SUCCESS

165

Children have gathered on the rug for large group reading time and they
are reading a new book. The teacher holds up the book, points at the title,
and asks, “What’s this?” A child answers, “Yellow sun.” The teacher responds,
“Yes there’s a yellow sun and the name of the book is the Very Busy Spider and
the author’s name is Eric Carle.” She begins to read the book, asking ques-
tions and talking about the text and pictures throughout the story. “Let’s see
what’s on this page. What do you think is going on? What is this cow doing
with this spider? Have you ever watched a spider make a web? Can you make
a sound like a goat?” Children rather noisily begin to “maaa” like goats and
she holds up her hand and begins to speak softly, a signal to settle down. The
children seem eager to continue the story and the goat noises give way to
more attentive listening. This teacher has found that it works best for her to
talk through the book the first time she reads it in the large group using a
style which includes elements of performance and interactive reading. She
rereads the book again in small group using a more constrained but still in-
teractive approach, and then finally she rereads the book for a third time
straight through in large group.

Box 1. An example of CAR Talk and interactive storybook reading from PAVEd
for Success.

into participating in larger groups. Box 1 illustrates one successful imple-
mentation of our storybook reading practices.

Building Bridges. To be considered successful in implementing Build-
ing Bridges, teachers had to engage each child individually or in small
groups in a conversation lasting about 5 to 1 0 minutes three times per week.
They also had to keep records of the children to whom they had talked.
Building Bridges was successfully implemented in 52% of the classrooms.
Difficulties in implementing Building Bridges occurred largely because of
time and record-keeping factors:

That was the most difficult component of the program . And, it wasjust because
you were having to document when you were talking to the children; I mean,
that is something that you naturally do anyway, but three times a week both my
paraprofessional and I and then for five minutes. It wasjust a time issue.

Teachers who were successful found times during their regular routine,
typically mealtimes, but even so it was difficult. “Just finding the time to sep-
arate yourself from the group because the second you separate yourself,
that’s when they all want to come and talk to you, you know, one at a time.”
Some teachers also struggled with meeting the different language capabil-
ities of individual children in their classrooms. “Trying to have conversations
with children who either choose not to interact socially with others or their
speech can’t be understood or they can’t speak English is frustrating — it’sjust

166

SCHWANENFLUGEL ET AL.

very frustrating.” Asking teachers to engage in conversations with a child with
whom they did not, at least initially, share a common language was a chal-
lenge, and those who were successful began by simply commenting on what
the child was doing or using simpler yes/no questions. One teacher described
her experience: “You really had to just pull stuff out of them [the nonnative
English speakers] and you might get one little short answer and if you just
keep talking, they finally got to where they’ll open up and talk to you too.”
Despite the difficulty some teachers had in systematically implementing
this strategy, those that did felt that it paid off, particularly from the per-
spective of supporting teacher-student relationships. “Before, it would be
in one and ear and out the other, so, you get to know your children a lot
better. That was a great benefit.” Or as one paraprofessional noted, before
they began Building Bridges, “There were some kids that probably got left
between the cracks because they didn’t talk and we just really never noticed
that a lot of kids weren’t even talking.”

Given that many teachers had difficulty implementing Building Bridges, it
is not surprising that most discontinued it during the sustainability phase of
the project. Teachers certainly saw the value of the experience but could not
fit it into their schedules as a consistent practice. “ Building Bridges may have
had a big influence ... thinking well that’s such a good thing to do but
when?” Teachers talked about sustaining a focus on engaging children in
conversations, but they did not maintain systematic ways of tracking that
these conversations took place. Box 2 provides an illustration of how one
teacher successfully carried out Building Bridges.

Early on a Monday morning, a group of 8 children and their teacher were sit-
ting at a table in their classroom as 5th grade safety patrol students arrived
with a breakfast cart. This teacher had struggled with how to implement
Building Bridges', there seemed to be no time during the day — mealtimes
were too noisy and disruptive in the cafeteria. All of the children seemed to
need their naps. She couldn’t find a way to schedule it during small group
time. Finally, with the support of her principal, she had been able to move
breakfast from the cafeteria to the classroom. Building Bridges was now part
of their regular routine. The teacher and paraprofessional alternated eating
with different groups of children. As breakfast began the teacher leaned over
to a little boy and asked about his weekend. The child looked up and excit-
edly said, “I got sick and threwed up.” This topic seemed to immediately in-
terest all the children at the table and though they listened, they didn’t
interrupt, they knew this was “his turn” and that their turn would come.

Box 2. An illustration of classroom use of Building Bridges.

8. LESSONS FROM PAVEd FOR SUCCESS

167

Explicit Vocabulary Practices

The explicit vocabulary intervention posed many challenges for teachers,
and just 6 1 % of the teachers implemented the explicit vocabulary enhance-
ment practices in their classrooms with a high degree of Fidelity. It appears
that the challenges were, in large measure, organizational. Teachers had
difficulties deciding on vocabulary-rich units, finding books with interest-
ing vocabulary, and thinking of activities that might support the use of vo-
cabulary. Our intention was to focus on effective practices while providing
teachers the freedom they needed to choose themes and materials that
worked for them. In reality, this meant that teachers had to expend quite a
bit of energy identifying the target vocabulary words, finding appropriate
books, finding pictures or objects for the N3C activities, and thinking of ex-
tension or assessment activities.

Identifying vocabulary words that clearly related to a theme and specific
books had some unexpected pitfalls. For example, many of our teachers be-
gan the year exploring the theme of friendship and frequently read the
book The Rainbow Fish (Pfister, 1992). This book is about a little fish that
learns to be a friend and share his pretty scales, and it supports the theme of
friendship, but it was difficult to use as a source for target vocabulary. They
correctly identified words like scales, starfish, or coral reef as good vocabulary
words, but the words were unrelated to their overall friendship theme. Al-
though we helped teachers identify appropriate themes, books, and target
vocabulary words during the intervention phase, it was still hard for teach-
ers to find 10 new target words each week that related to a theme and were
included in two appropriate books.

Some teachers also had difficulty finding pictures or objects for each tar-
get vocabulary word. As one teacher noted, “Nouns seemed to work. There
were some other vocabulary areas I wanted them to know, and that was a
real challenge . . . some ones like waddle. ” Teachers who were successful used
Internet picture resources as a source for pictures to support vocabulary
learning. Others used book illustrations as a source of vocabulary pictures.
Others incorporated target vocabulary into their classroom through a
“show-and-tell” routine by asking children to bring in objects from home
for each target vocabulary word.

On the positive side, teachers found that children were very excited
about learning new vocabulary words. As one teacher noted:

It was good to see that they picked up on that kind of stuff. And then to watch
them, during the unit, play with the stuff in the room, “That’s the stethoscopel
That’s the tongue depressorl” ... instead of being the popsicle stick (which is what
it has been their entire life).

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Teachers who effectively implemented the explicit vocabulary prac-
tices embedded these practices as part of large-group storybook reading,
free play, center activities, or other ongoing classroom procedures. Many
teachers, even those who were successful, were initially concerned: “It was
just so overwhelming ... it was just like I need 3 more hours added to this
day to get all this stuff done and to feel like it was going to be effective.”
Teachers had to reorganize their schedules to incorporate these activities
and they had to work effectively as a team with their paraprofessional. As
one teacher noted, she needed to “keep a lot of what we had been doing
’cause that’s what we knew, and just kind of add those in.” Another said, “I
incorporated my vocabulary in with my book sharing because that made it
a whole lot better and ... we ended up reading probably two to three times
a day in a large-group setting . . . then the next week it’s up in the book cen-
ter and they are reading the books to each other.” Teachers also brought
target vocabulary words into free-choice or center activities by including
the target vocabulary words in the writing center, featuring vocabulary as
part of the unit, or having children dictate stories together as a class, which
emphasized the vocabulary words.

Classrooms in which vocabulary assessment was systematic were often
those in which both the teacher and the paraprofessional took an active
role. For example, the teacher might ask questions about the target vocabu-
lary words during large-group time while the paraprofessional assessed in-
dividual children’s responses using a checklist. One teacher asked children
to raise “thumbs up” when they heard a current target vocabulary word be-
ing used and “hands up” for a target word from a previous week. Children
in that classroom loved being the first with “thumbs up” or the only one to
remember a word with “hands up.”

To be successful, teachers had to be good organizers. Classrooms in
which explicit vocabulary practices were less effective were those in which
teachers had difficulty “fitting vocabulary into the day” or focusing on spe-
cific vocabulary entirely: “It takes looking ahead, I think, and actually plan-
ning what you think the children are capable of doing and trying not to be
... overwhelmed.”

As we moved into the sustainability phase, teachers seemed to maintain a
focus on vocabulary but dropped the formal implementation guidelines.
Many continued to target specific vocabulary, usually at least five words per
week, and they did continue to incorporate target words into thematic
small-group activities. They did not continue to introduce words using the
N3C strategy, base the target words on specific texts, or systematically assess
vocabulary. Moreover, many teachers throughout the intervention and
sustainability period had incorporated the target vocabulary words into
their parent newsletters: “I got several comments from parents about how

8. LESSONS FROM PAVEd FOR SUCCESS

169

It was two weeks before Halloween and the second day of a unit on spiders.
The teacher did not want to emphasize Halloween in her classroom because
of the varied religious backgrounds of children and families, but did want to
focus on a topic that related to children’s current interest in things spooky and
scary. The vocabulary words included arachnid, orb web, and hammock web. She
had found pictures representing these words using google.com and from the
photographs in one of the books she was using. As I walked in the room I no-
ticed the bulletin boards were newly decorated with a multitude of black spi-
ders, each with eight pipe cleaner legs but each also decorated with widely
differing configurations of spots. Children were just coming in from outside,
stopping momentarily to get a drink of water or wash hands. As they entered
the teacher asked them to find their spots on the rug and get ready for circle
time. As they settled in she took her position at the front of the group while the
paraprofessional sat in a small chair towards the back of the group with a pen-
cil and clipboard in hand. She settled the children in and reviewed the vocab-
ulary words she had introduced the day before using N3C. She read through
an expository text about spiders paying special attention to the vocabulary
words, asking questions, and in some cases summarizing the text because the
book was at a third or fourth grade reading level. Throughout the group time,
the paraprofessional jotted notes and completed a checklist about children’s
expressive use of the vocabulary words. When group time ended, the children
were sent to various areas throughout the classroom. With the help of the
paraprofessional, the children tossed a ball of yarn from one to another to cre-
ate a giant spider web.

Box 3. An example of classroom activities from the explicit Vocabulary Enhance-
ment program.

impressed they were with some of the vocabulary words.” Thus, the focus on
target vocabulary may have carried over into children’s home environ-
ments. Box 3 provides an illustration of the vocabulary program in action.

EFFECTIVENESS OF THE PROGRAM

FOR ENHANCING CHILDREN’S VOCABULARY

Prior to evaluating the effectiveness of the program for improving chil-
dren’s vocabularies, we determined whether each teacher carried out the
key aspects of the practice most of the time based on observation notes, in-
terviews, and lesson plans. For each classroom, we decided whether each
teacher showed fidelity with CAR Talk, Building Bridges, and the explicit
vocabulary enhancement program separately. Recall that not all teachers
had received professional development on the explicit features of the pro-
gram, so they would not have been expected to demonstrate these prac-

170

SCHWANENFLUGEL ET AL.

tices. Moreover, teachers in the control classrooms had not received any of
this training, so would have been extremely unlikely to have carried out the
practices given the x equirements that we set for demonstrating fidelity on
given practices. Thus, in some classrooms, children’s teachers were ob-
served to have carried out only one of the three practices with fidelity,
whereas in others they carried out all of them. In still others, including all
the control classrooms, children were not exposed to any of the practices in
a systematic way. These differences among classrooms were used as the ef-
fective levels of the program (none, one implicit, two implicit, one im-
plicit/one explicit, and all practices) from the point of view of the children,
regardless of whether the teacher did not receive professional development
on a given practice or simply chose not to carry it out.

Children’s receptive and expressive vocabularies were assessed using the
Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Ill (Dunn & Dunn, 1997) and the Expres-
sive Vocabulary Test (Williams, 1997). Note that we did not directly assess
whether children learned the particular vocabulary teachers had targeted,
but rather, whether vocabulary growth would be reflected on standardized
tests of vocabulary knowledge, presumably a much tougher standard.

The PPVT-III and EVT were part of a larger battery of preliteracy assess-
ments administered to the children in a quiet area in their school. Each test
took approximately 15 to 20 minutes to administer. Children were pro-
vided with stickers upon completing each test and they received children’s
books for their participation in the study. Children were tested once at the
start of the intervention, immediately after the 15-week intervention, and
then 3 months later at the end of the school year. Standard scores were cal-
culated based the children’s chronological age at the time of testing.

Effects of the vocabulary practices were determined using the proce-
dures suggested by Rausch, Maxwell, and Kelley (2003), who reviewed vari-
ous analytic schemes for pretest-posttest designs, including repeated
measures Analysis of Variance, analysis of gain scores, and Hierarchical
Linear Modeling. They concluded that an Analysis of Covariance, treating
the pretest as the covariate, was the most powerful approach to determining
effects of an intervention. ANCOVA, because it allowed the use of regres-
sion to control for preexisting ability, had no less power than many of these
designs and more parsimony. In this study, we were interested in overall ef-
fects of vocabulary practices. However, the use of ANCOVA in this way is
conservative because a great deal of variance is accounted for by the
covariate, the children’s initial vocabulary.

Effects of the program were evaluated for children’s receptive vocabu-
lary and expressive vocabulary separately. We also distinguished whether
children were designated as native English speakers according to parental
report. Overall, children in the intervention started the school year with

8. LESSONS FROM PAVEd FOR SUCCESS

171

very low vocabulary levels (PPVT: M = 83, SD = 21; EVT: M = 92,

SD = 17). A 5-teacher practice level (none, one implicit, two implicit, one
implicit/one explicit, or all) X 2 first language (English or Other) X test
time (immediate versus delayed posttest) repeated-measures ANCOVA
was carried out using the child’s pretest scores as a covariate for the
PPVT-III and EVT separately.

For the EVT, there were no significant main effects of Time of testing,
child’s first language, teacher practice, or interactions between any of these
factors. However, only 58% of children not speaking English as their native
language had enough English proficiency to even attempt EVT testing dur-
ing pretest, so their data are not included in this analysis. Clearly, the pro-
gram had little impact on expressive vocabulary.

For the PPVT, the effects of the intervention were much more positive.
As seen in Fig. 8.1, there was no main effect of time of test, F ( 1 , 297) < 1 ,
suggesting that any effects of the program were fairly stable following the
immediate posttest. There was a significant effect of the child’s first lan-
guage, F(l, 397) = 5.29,/) = .022, partial eta 2 = .013, and first language X
time interaction, F (1, 397) = 4.50, p = .033, such that English language
learners made larger receptive vocabulary gains than native English speak-
ers did across all practices. Clearly, attendance at preschool in general is
important for developing the English vocabulary skills of English language

■B

■o

</> c
*o <5

s o

-1

-2

Testing Post- Intervention

□ None

IB One Implicit

0Two Implicit

El One Implicit, One Explicit

■ All

FIG. 8.1. Changes in children’s pretest adjusted PPVT-III standard scores as a
function of the number and type of vocabulary practices implemented by their
teacher during the 15-week intervention period (None; One Implicit; Two Im-
plicit: One Implicit, One Explicit; All).

172

SCHWANENFLUGEL ET AL.

learners. However, most importantly for our purposes here, once adjusted
for pretest PPVT, there was a main effect of teacher practice,

F (4, 397) = 3.58 ,p = .007, partial eta 2 = .035, that was similar across native
and nonnative English-speaking children, F ( 4, 397) = 1.39, p = .239.

Simple contrasts indicated that children whose teachers carried out any
combination of program practices with fidelity ended up with higher vocab-
ularies than controls, all p < .05. It seems that the more practices teachers
engaged in, the better off children appeared to be, particularly if explicit
vocabulary practices were used. Adjusting for initial vocabulary level, by the
end of the year children whose teachers had carried out all the practices
scored 8.2 standard score points and 14 percentile ranks higher than those
whose teachers carried out none of them. Clearly, if the practices were car-
ried out through kindergarten, children’s vocabularies might well fall
within in the normal range.

LESSONS FROM PAVED FOR SUCCESS

We have identified a number of promising approaches for enhancing the vo-
cabularies of prekindergarten children. Systematic approaches, both im-
plicit and explicit, were found to have an impact above and beyond
enrollment in a quality preschool environment. Clearly, the more ways vo-
cabulary was targeted, the more children’s vocabularies improved. Our find-
ings support the view that a comprehensive approach to vocabulary offers the
best opportunity for supporting the linguistic needs of young children.

We found that the gains children made during the intervention were
maintained following the intervention despite the fact that some of the sys-
tematic aspects of program were dropped. What remained, however, was
teachers’ focus on core practices that supported vocabulary learning.
Rather than simply saying, “Focus on vocabulary,” or merely, “Talk to
kids,” we provided very specific guidelines for how and why that should be
done. Teachers who had the training were able to modify practices in a way
that continued to support vocabulary.

With regard to enhancing teacher-child talk in the classroom, teachers
benefited from a structure that made scheduling conversations with indi-
vidual children part of a routine. Although the systematic record-keeping
aspect of Building Bridges was largely discontinued f ollowing the interven-
tion, teachers had set up a foundation in their classrooms that made it more
likely that children would initiate conversations with them. A classroom cli-
mate had been created where such conversation was the norm.

With regard to CAR Talk, we feel that the secret of the teachers’ success
in the implementation can be attributed to the simplification that we made
to other procedures that had been suggested by other researchers. CAR
Talk encouraged children to demonstrate both simple and difficult types of

8. LESSONS FROM PAVEd FOR SUCCESS

173

knowledge, while motivating them to relate books to their personal experi-
ences. These practices may have fostered children’s engagement in the text
and averted a difficult period where children were unable to provide an-
swers to the abstract questions that were raised (McKeown & Beck, 2003).

Our interviews and observations convince us that having an explicit focus
on vocabulary is something that preschool teachers want. It is also clear that
developing an integrated explicit focus on vocabulary (including concrete
props, stories, activities, and assessments) is difficult without a program
package. If one was provided to them, it is likely that at least relevant parts
would be implemented.

For children entering school already at risk for reading failure, this pro-
gram had a substantive impact on their vocabularies. With some minor
modifications, the integrated program we suggest might be feasible. We
have described how teachers who were successful in implementing the prac-
tices were able to integrate them into their classrooms. Our findings have
direct implications for policymakers attempting to improve the preliteracy
skills of young children.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The research presented here was carried out as part of the funding from the
U.S. Department of Education Early Childhood Educator Professional De-
velopment program, 2001. Bradley is affiliated with the Department of
Teaching and Learning at the LIniversity of Kansas, Lawrence, KS.
Restrepo is affiliated with the Department of Speech and Hearing Science,
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ. Hamilton and Neuharth-Pritchell
are affiliated with Elementary Education; and Ruston and Schwanenflugel
with Educational Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA.

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Chapter

Strategies for Teaching
Middle-Grade Students
to Use Word-Part and Context Clues
to Expand Reading Vocabulary

James F. Baumann
University of Georgia

George Font

Purdue University

Elizabeth Carr Edwards

University of Georgia

Eileen Boland

Fresno, California

In two recent studies (Baumann, Edwards, Boland, Olejnik, 8c Kame’enui,
2003; Baumann, Edwards, Font, Tereshinski, Kame’enui, & Olejnik, 2002),
we explored the effectiveness of teaching middle-grade students to use root
words, prefixes, and suffixes to derive word meanings, that is, to use
word-part clues. We also taught students to scrutinize the text in sentences
and paragraphs around an unfamiliar word to infer its meanings, that is, to
use context clues. Results supported the effectiveness of our interventions.
Quantitative, or numerical, findings revealed that students learned the
meanings of prefixes and suffixes and used that knowledge to derive the

179

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BAUMANN ET AL.

meanings of novel words with affixes. The data also demonstrated that stu-
dents who were taught specific types of context clues were able to use con-
textual analysis to unlock the meanings of unfamiliar words.

In addition to the numerical data, at the end of the instructional pro-
gram we conducted interviews and invited participants to complete ques-
tionnaires to provide us descriptive information about the interventions.
We asked students to explain how they determined the meanings of un-
known words, and several students noted that they used word-part clues.
For example, one student stated, “I figured out [the meaning of semiretired],
like I knew what retired means, so I just had to figure out what semi means.
Semi means like part or half, so you’re almost or half-way retired.” Other
students commented that they had relied on context: “After I read the sen-
tence [containing/orh/Mfite], I noticed that it had a comma and then it said or
courage.... I just used courage from what you taught us ... and that was one of
the context clues.”

When asked about the instructional program, teachers noted that their
students were more likely to use context clues (e.g., “[My students] seem to
be able to look for context clues better and pick out meanings.”) and
word-structure information (e.g., “The students have been able to identify
word parts now and figure out the meanings of words.”) to determine the
meanings of difficult vocabulary. Students indicated that they used context
(e.g., “I used to skip over [words], but now I go back and read for context
clues.”), and others stated that they looked for word-part clues (e.g., “I see
prefixes in other books I read.”).

Given the findings of our research and similar research by others, we
have prepared this chapter in order to present strategies that middle-grade
teachers (Grades 4-8) might use to instruct students to use word-part and
context clues to expand their reading vocabularies. We begin with a brief
review of research on vocabulary instruction, with emphasis on teaching
word-part and context clues as means to promote word knowledge. Next,
we describe the interventions we implemented and provide sample lessons
for teaching word-part and context clues in language arts and content area
classes. We conclude by acknowledging limits to and extensions of the in-
structional recommendations we offer.

RESEARCH ON VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION

The Importance of a Multifaceted Vocabulary Instructional Program

Vocabulary is strongly associated with reading comprehension (Anderson
& Freebody, 1981; Cunningham & Stanovich, 1 997) and is an integral com-
ponent of reading instructional programs (Beck & McKeown, 1991;
Blachowicz & Fisher, 2000). Many researchers and writers have argued that

9. STRATEGIES TO EXPAND READING VOCABULARY

181

a vocabulary instructional program should be multifaceted, or have multi-
ple components (e.g., Johnson, 2001; Nagy, 1988). Graves (2000) identi-
fied four components that possess both intuitive appeal and empirical
support for expanding students’ reading vocabularies: (a) exposure to writ-
ten language by engaging in wide, independent reading (Swanborn & de
Glopper, 1999); (b) instruction in specific words (Stahl & Fairbanks, 1986);
(c) teaching students word-learning strategies for independent vocabulary
acquisition (Fukkink & de Glopper, 1998; White, Sowell, & Yanagihara,
1989); and (d) fostering word consciousness to promote motivated, reflec-
tive word learning (Graves & Watts-Taffe, 2002; Scott & Nagy, 2004).

In our research, we focused on Graves’s (2000) third component — teach-
ing word-learning strategies — specifically, instruction in word-part and
context clues. Nagy, Anderson, Schommer, Scott, and Stallman (1989) as-
serted that “more than 60% of the new words that readers encounter have
relatively transparent morphological structure — that is, they can be broken
down into [meaningful] parts” (p. 279). In addition, Nagy and Anderson
( 1 984) stated that “for every word a child learns, we estimate that there are
an average of one to three additional related words that should also be un-
derstandable to the child, the exact number depending on how well the
child is able to utilize context and morphology to induce meanings” (p.
304). Thus, there is potential power in skillful use of available word-part
and context clues.

Research on Teaching Word-Part and Context Clues

Early research on teaching word-part clues, or morphological analysis, pro-
duced mixed findings (cf. Otterman, 1955; Thompson, 1958), but more
contemporary studies have indicated that students can be taught various
word-parts, most often prefixes and suffixes, to derive the meanings of un-
taught words (e.g., Graves & Flammond, 1980; Wysocki & Jenkins, 1987).
There is also equivocal historic research on teaching context clues (cf. Askov
& Kamm, 1976; Hafner, 1965), although more current research supports
the efficacy of teaching students to employ linguistic clues to infer word
meanings through context (e.g., Buikema & Graves, 1993; Jenkins, Mat-
lock, & Slocum, 1989). Building on and extending this research, we recently
conducted two studies involving teaching Grade 5 students to use word-part
and context clues.

Study 1. In the first study (Baumann etal., 2002), we wanted to find out
if we could teach students morphemic (word-part) and contextual analysis
as strategies for learning new vocabulary. We also wondered whether the ac-
quisition of these word-learning strategies would affect students’ reading

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BAUMANN ETAL.

comprehension. To explore this, we conducted a study with fifth-grade stu-
dents, providing them twelve 50-minute vocabulary strategy lessons.

We included four groups of fifth graders in our study: a Prefix, Context,
Combined, and Control group. For the Prefix Group, we taught them the
meanings of 20 prefixes organized into families (e.g., the “Not Family” =
in-, im-, un-, dis-) and how to derive the meanings of new words that con-
tained those prefixes. For the Context Group, we taught nine types of con-
text clues (e.g., direct definition, synonym) and how to use them to infer the
meanings of unknown words. For the Combined Group, we taught them
the information provided to the Prefix and Context groups, but in an ab-
breviated fashion. For the Control Group, students read and responded to
a children’s book, so that we could compare students who did not receive
special instruction in word-part and context clues to those who did.

We found that students in either the Prefix or Combined Group were
more skillful at deriving the meanings of novel words that contained the
prefixes w'e taught compared to students in the Context Group or Control
Group. Similarly, we found that students in the Context or Combined
Group outperformed students in the Prefix and Control group on mea-
sures that had them use context to infer the meanings of unfamiliar words.
We also found that the w'ord-part and context instruction was equally effec-
tive when provided either separately (i.e., Prefix or Context Group) or in
tandem (i.e., Combined Group). Students both high and low in vocabulary
ability prior to the study seemed to benefit equally from the instruction.
Finally, there were no group differences on a reading comprehension mea-
sure. We concluded that students can be taught to use word-part and con-
text clues to learn vocabulary independently, that combined w'ord-part and
context instruction is just as effective as separate instruction, and that this
instruction does not necessarily enhance text comprehension.

Study 2. We were encouraged by our first study, but it was limited in
that it was a fairly controlled, or “laboratory,” kind of study. At the conclu-
sion of their review of vocabulary research, the National Reading Panel
(2000) stated that “the Panel knows a great deal about the ways in which vo-
cabulary increases under highly controlled conditions” but “there is a great
need for the conduct of research ... in authentic school contexts, with real
teachers, under real conditions” (p. 4-27). Therefore, our second study
(Baumann, Edwards, et al., 2003) addressed the call for more naturalistic
vocabulary research. Specifically, we enlisted the help of regular classroom
teachers to provide the instruction (we had taught the lessons in Study 1).
We embedded combined word-part and context clue instruction within the
adopted school curriculum (a unit on the Civil War from the social studies

9. STRATEGIES TO EXPAND READING VOCABULARY

183

textbook). And we integrated brief (15-minute) vocabulary strategy lessons
into daily 45-minute social studies lessons.

We provided instructional materials and staff development to eight
Grade 5 teachers, who were randomly assigned to one of two intervention
groups: a Word-Part/Context Group or a Textbook Vocabulary Group.
Teachers in the Word-Part/Context Group taught their students 20 pre-
fixes and suffixes and 5 context clue types as strategies for learning new vo-
cabulary. We selected the instructional example words right from the social
studies textbook lessons (e.g., citizenship was used to teach the suffix -ship).
Teachers in the Textbook Vocabulary Group spent equivalent instructional
time teaching students the meanings of content-specific vocabulary (e.g.,
tariff, secede) from the same social studies textbook lessons. The interven-
tions spanned 2 months, with both groups receiving 25 lessons.

We again found that combined word-part and context clue instruction
generally was effective. Students in Word Part/Context Group classes out-
performed Textbook Vocabulary Group classes on a test of new words that
contained prefixes and suffixes that the students had been taught. They
also outperformed the Textbook Vocabulary Group on a delayed test, al-
though not an immediate test, that required students to determine the
meanings of novel words included in social studies textbook excerpts the
students had not yet read (i.e., words that had the same affixes that had
been taught and words that were in contexts similar to the clues the students
had been taught). As expected, the Textbook Vocabulary Group outper-
formed the Word Part/Context Group on a test of the key vocabulary they
had been taught. There were no group differences on measures of social
studies learning (two textbook chapter tests) or a comprehension measure,
and again, students both high and low in initial vocabulary knowledge
benefited from the instruction.

In summary, we concluded from our two studies that word-part and
context clue instruction can be provided to middle-grade students in an
integrated manner that enables them to derive the meanings of novel,
transfer words that contain prefixes and suffixes that they had been
taught. There also was evidence, although somewhat limited by the re-
sults of Study 2, that students could apply knowledge of context clue in-
struction to infer the meanings of novel, transfer words in experimental
and natural texts. We also found that this instruction was effective for stu-
dents who were initially high or low in vocabulary, although there was no
evidence that the vocabulary strategies influenced students’ subject mat-
ter learning differentially or enhanced their text comprehension. We
now turn to a description of the elements of the instructional program
employed in these studies.

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BAUMANN ET AL.

TEACHING WORD-PART AND CONTEXT CLUES
TO EXPAND READING VOCABULARY

Instructional Content

Word-Part Clues. Word-part clues are meaningful parts of words
(morphemes) that a reader can identify and then assemble to derive the
meaning of a previously unfamiliar word. Instruction in word-part clues
typically involves teaching root or base words, prefixes, and suffixes. In our
research, we provided students instruction primarily in prefixes, which
Graves (2004) argues are efficient and effective to teach because prefixes
are relatively few in number and have generally consistent spellings and
meanings. We also taught a few high-frequency suffixes.

We have listed later in this chapter (see Teaching Chart 3 adjacent to
Sample Lesson 2) the prefixes and suffixes that we included in our re-
search, along with additional affixes that we believe are worthy of in-
struction based on their frequency of occurrence in various empirically
and descriptively based listings (e.g., Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, &
Johnston, 1996; Blachowicz & Fisher, 1996; Durkin, 1981; Johnson &
Pearson, 1978; White et al., 1989). We found that clustering affixes into
groups, or “families,” when appropriate helped students to learn, recall,
and apply them well, so that is the organization we recommend. We con-
cur with Graves (2004), who suggests that affix instruction be restricted,
at least initially, to words in which the affix removal results in an intact
English word, or free morpheme (e.g ..pre/approve), as opposed to those
in which affix removal results in a root that cannot stand alone as a word
(e.g., pre/dict).

Context Clues. Context clues involve the linguistic (e.g., words, phrases,
sentences) and nonlinguistic information (e.g., illustrations, typographic fea-
tures) available surrounding an unfamiliar word, which a reader can use to
infer the word’s meaning. Instruction in context clues typically involves
teaching students to use linguistic information to predict the meaning of a
word (e.g., Blachowicz, 1993; Buikema & Graves, 1993; Durkin, 1981), and
that was the focus of our research and the emphasis here.

Various researchers and writers have offered listings of context clue
types (e.g.. Dale & O’Rourke, 1986; Johnson 8c Pearson, 1978; Sternberg &
Powell, 1983). Drawing from these sources, we identified nine context clues
for instruction in our first study. In an attempt to make instruction more ef-
ficient, we consolidated and reduced these nine types to five in our second
experiment, which we present later (see Teaching Chart 4 adjacent to Sam-
ple Lesson 3) and recommend for instruction.

9. STRATEGIES TO EXPAND READING VOCABULARY

185

Instructional Framework

In our research, we employed an explicit instruction model (Pearson 8c
Gallagher, 1983) that included a gradual release of responsibility dimen-
sion (Pearson & Fielding, 1991). This translated into an instructional
framework that included verbal explanation, modeling, guided practice,
and independent practice (Duke 8c Pearson, 2002) of the particular
word-part or context clue under consideration. In Study 1 , we created in-
structional texts to teach word-part and context clues. In Study 2, we cre-
ated a few instructional texts, but we relied primarily on excerpts from the
social studies textbook to teach word-part and context clues. We see an ap-
propriate place for the judicious use of both specially constructed instruc-
tional texts and regular curricular materials. The former are useful to
clearly demonstrate to students how word-part and context clues function;
the latter are necessary to promote transfer and application of word-learn-
ing strategies to real-world texts.

Sample Lesson Scenario

The sample lessons incorporate instructional principles and examples
from our two studies, but they are not lessons directly from the research. In-
stead, we present four, sequenced sample lessons that reflect our empirical
explorations and the strategies and guidelines we recommend for teaching
students word-part and context clues (Edwards, Font, Baumann, & Boland,
2004). The lesson sequence includes integrated instruction such that stu-
dents learn to examine words simultaneously for all available intraword
(word-part) and interword (context clue) linguistic information that may
help them unlock a word’s meaning. For instructional efficiency and clarity,
however, we believe that there is a place for separate instruction in word-
parts and context dues, as long as the two are integrated ultimately.

To demonstrate how teachers might embed word-part and context clue
instruction within their existing curriculum, the lessons reference various
subject matter texts and trade books, the latter of which could be read in
conjunction with language arts structures such as book club (McMahon, Ra-
phael, Goatley, & Pardo, 1997) or literature circles (Daniels, 2002). It is im-
portant to recognize that even though the sample lessons focus on
strategies for identifying word meanings, the strategy lessons should not
dominate content or language arts instruction. Therefore, we intend for
lessons like the following to represent a small amount of the total instruc-
tional time, with the majority of class time dedicated to reading, discussing,
analyzing, responding to, enjoying, and learning from the trade books and
subject matter texts.

Each of the following model lessons is taught by a hypothetical Grade 5
teacher, who might work in an elementary school or in a middle school en-

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vironment. We have chosen to portray each lesson within a somewhat dif-
ferent instructional context, so that we can demonstrate how the word-
learning strategies might be integrated into different curricular areas.
Lesson 1 describes how Ms. Jackson uses historical fiction to teach an over-
view lesson on the combined use of word-part and context clues. In Lesson
2, Mr. Lopez provides instruction in word-part analysis by connecting it to
social studies textbook content, and Lesson 3 describes how Ms. Lee uses
science class to teach context clues. In Lesson 4, Mr. Olson provides inte-
grated instruction in word-part and context clues through his use of litera-
ture circles.

We use the following conventions in the sample lessons. Descriptions of
lesson events are presented in regular type, with annotations referring to
lesson procedures or teacher or student actions [in brackets]. We do not ad-
vocate scripted lessons, but we present possible teacher wordings in bold
type. Excerpts from published texts and instructional examples we have
created are presented in italic type. Teaching charts and student work pa-
pers are presented as boxed text figures.

Sample Lesson 1 : Introducing Word-Parts and Context Clues

Background. Ms. Jackson is a member of a team of fifth-grade elemen-
tary teachers who have decided to focus on vocabulary. Team members
have brought articles to team meetings that describe how students can use
word-parts and context clues to learn new word meanings. Ms. Jackson has
volunteered to begin a month-long effort in the language arts block in
which she works explicitly with students on both word-parts and context
clues. Because her program has long revolved around the reading and dis-
cussion of literature, she knows that the combination of word-part and con-
text clue instruction could go a long way in supporting students’ under-
standing of the rich vocabulary in literature. Ms. Jackson knows that stu-
dents have received general instruction in prior grades on context clues
and structural elements, so she assumes that students know what context clue,
root word, prefix, and suffix mean. Should she find this assumption to be un-
true, she would reteach those concepts.

The class has been begun reading Patricia C. McKissack’s (1997) Run
Away Home as a complement to their study of postbellum U.S. history in so-
cial studies. Run Away Home is historical fiction that builds on McKissack’s
African American and Native American ancestors and tells the story of how
Sarah Jane befriends a runaway Apache boy in southeast Alabama in 1 888.
Chapters 1 and 2 of the book have been read and discussed in large- and
small-group formats.

Verbal Explanation. Following the instructional framework of
Pearson (Duke & Pearson, 2002; Pearson & Gallagher, 1983), Ms. Jackson

9. STRATEGIES TO EXPAND READING VOCABULARY

187

begins the word-part and context clue instruction with a verbal explanation
of why and where the strategies will be useful:

Sometimes when you read, you will come across a word for which you are
not sure of its meaning. This can make it difficult for you to understand
and enjoy the story. There are different things you can do to help you fig-
ure out the meanings of unknown words. In several lessons beginning to-
day, we will learn about two strategies: using context clues and looking for
word parts like root words, prefixes, and suffixes. [If necessary, Ms. Jack-
son would review the concepts of prefixes, suffixes, and root words at this
time.] We will put these together in what I call The Vocabulary Rule,
which will give you a strategy to help figure out the meanings of unknown
words. [Ms. Jackson displays Teaching Chart 1 and reads the three steps to
the students.] The Vocabulary Rule will not always work, but it is one more
tool you can add to your Reading Strategy Toolbox to help you become in-
dependent readers and learners.

Modeling. Following verbal explanation, Ms. Jackson moves to the
modeling phase of the instructional framework. To support this modeling,
she has put part of the text that students have been discussing on an over-
head transparency:

Buster grew into a big dog, built like a collie, but until a dark reddish coatofaredbone.

But Papa's delight turned sour when no amount of training could turn Buster into a
fine hunting dog. “Too wild, uncontrollable. Useless," he announced, dismissing
Buster as a failure. (McKissack, 1997, pp. 6-7)

After students have read the text on the transparency, Ms. Jackson dem-
onstrates how to use the vocabulary strategy:

Let’s say that you are not sure what the word uncontrollable means. The
Vocabulary Rule can help us figure out what it means. I’m going to model
the three steps of The Vocabulary Rule.

Step 1 says to read the sentences to see if there are any clues. [She begins
reading and stops at uncontrollable .] Hmmm. Papa says that Buster is “Too

Teaching Chart 1: VOCABULARY RULE

When you come to a word, and you don’t know what it means, use:

1. CONTEXT CLUES: Read the sentences around the word to see if there are
clues to its meaning.

2. WORD-PART CLUES: See if you can break the word into a root word, prefix,
or suffix to help figure out its meaning.

3. CONTEXT CLUES: Read the sentences around the word again to see if you
have figured out its meaning.

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BAUMANN ET AL.

wild, uncontrollable.” I wonder if uncontrollable means something like
wild, for Papa uses those words right after one another? What do you
think? [Students reply to Ms. Jackson’s query.]

Step 1 also says to read the sentences around the word, so I better read on. It
says that Papa called Buster “useless” and thought of “Buster as a failure.”
These seem like other context clues, for if uncontrollable means something
like wild, then it makes sense that Papa would consider Buster to be useless
and a failure as a hunting dog. It also said before that “no amount of train-
ing could turn Buster into a fine hunting dog,” which seems to go along
with the idea that Buster was wild. Does it seem like we’re finding useful
clues that uncontrollable means wild ? [Students respond.]

Now let’s try Step 2, which says to see if you can break the word into a root
word and any prefixes or suffixes. It looks as though control might be the
root word and that un- is a prefix and -able is a suffix. [She writes the follow-
ing on the board, as she explains her reasoning for what each word part
means: “ control = to be restrained or to hold back; un - = not; -able = capable
of.”] So, if control means to be restrained or to hold back and -able means
capable of, then controllable means capable of being held back or re-
strained, like this. [She writes “ control + -able = controllable = capable of be-
ing held back or restrained” on the board.] And if un- means not, then
uncontrollable means not capable of being held back or restrained, or not
tame. [She writes “un- + control + -able = uncontrollable = not capable of be-
ing held back or restrained” on the board.]

Step 3 says to check the context again. [She rereads the text on the transpar-
ency.] Does the idea of Buster being not capable of being restrained or
held back make sense? Do you get the idea that Buster is not tame or wild
as Papa said? [Students respond.]

Guided Practice. The third part of the instructional framework in-
volves guided practice, during which students practice applying the skills
with support from the teacher as well as other students. Ms. Jackson has a
transparency with the following sentences ready:

• Rashad was a disbeliever. He never accepted what anyone had to say or what
he read. We expected him to question everything he heard and to view what he
read with suspicion.

• My Mom said that she thought that the winner of the reality TV show was pre-
determined. She said that the people who put on the show had already decided
which performer would win the grand prize.

She reminds students of the three steps to figure out the meaning of the
word disbeliever in the first example, referring them to the three steps on
The Vocabulary Rule poster. After giving students time to apply the strat-

9. STRATEGIES TO EXPAND READING VOCABULARY

189

egy, she asks for a volunteer to explain the use of the Vocabulary Rule to fig-
ure out the meaning of disbeliever. She reinforces and reteaches The
Vocabulary Rule as needed to help students apply it independently. She
then repeats the process for the predetermined example.

Independent Practice. The final step of the instructional framework is
for students to apply the strategy independently. Several features of this in-
dependent practice are important to note. First, Ms. Jackson has identified
several instances from Run Away Horne in preparation for this practice, to
which she refers students in the book. Second, she does not ask students to
go through all instances all at once.

In conjunction with the assigned independent reading of chapters 3 and
4 of Run Away Home, Ms. Jackson has students use The Vocabulary Rule to
try to determine the meanings of southbound (p. 11), sureness (p. 13), over-
looked (p. 18), and unnatural (p. 1 9), recording their answers on paper. Time
is given in class to start the assignment, so that Ms. J ackson can monitor stu-
dents’ understanding of the strategies and help those who need assistance.
Students are to come back the following day with descriptions of the useful-
ness of The Vocabulary Rule with these words.

The next day, Ms. Jackson begins her lesson with students’ descriptions,
including their explanations of why and where the strategy was useful.
When students’ explanations show misunderstandings, she leads them in
applying the strategy appropriately. The Vocabulary Rule on the posterwill
be revisited frequently over the next month through discussions of strategy
use and, when necessary, modeling of the use of the strategy. The posterwill
remain visible in the classroom even after the month-long period, and Ms.
Jackson will ask students to review the strategy periodically as unknown
words are encountered in texts and discussions.

Sample Lesson 2: Teaching Word-Part Analysis

Background. Mr. Lopez teaches social studies in a middle school. He
has determined that comprehension of the social studies textbook is a prob-
lem for a number of his students, which he sees as impeding the students’
learning. Having recently taken a university course in content area reading,
he is aware of the importance of word knowledge to text understanding and
subject matter learning. Thus, he has decided to implement a multifaceted
vocabulary initiative this school year (Graves, 2000). As one component of
his program, he has decided to teach his students strategies for independ-
ent word learning by relying on word-part and contextual information.

Mr. Lopez has planned a series of lessons on teaching word-part and con-
text clues that he will implement as he teaches a unit on the Civil War using
the adopted social studies textbook. Several days ago, he taught an introduc-

190

BAUMANN ETAL.

tory lesson on The Vocabulary Rule that was similar to Ms. Jackson’s preced-
ing lesson. He now moves into teaching specific word-part clues. This lesson,
just like the other sample lessons, follows the instructional framework of ver-
bal explanation, modeling, guided practice, and independent practice
(Duke & Pearson, 2002; Pearson 8c Gallagher, 1983). Mr. Lopez assumes that
his students possess general knowledge of structural elements, although he is
prepared to review or reteach those concepts as needed.

Verbal Explanation. He begins the lesson by connecting it to his pre-
ceding introductory lesson and then explaining how to analyze words for
meaningful parts as a strategy for deriving their meanings:

We have learned about The Vocabulary Rule [pointing to Teaching Chart
1] as a way to use context and word-part clues to help us figure out the
meanings of difficult or new words. It says to first use context, second to
look for word-part clues, and third to use context again.

Today we will take a closer look at Step 2, using word-part clues. Please
look at this second chart, which tells us more about how to use word-part
clues. [He displays and reads Teaching Chart 2, explaining briefly each of
the four steps to the students.] Knowing how to look for and use word parts
to figure out word meanings is important because many root words have
prefixes and suffixes, and we can use that information to help figure out
the meanings of new words that contain those word parts.

Modeling. Mr. Lopez now demonstrates how to analyze the meaningful
parts of words as a strategy for deriving word meanings. He displays the fol-
lowing section of the students’ social studies textbook on a transparency, in-
vites a volunteer to read it aloud, and then proceeds to model strategy use:

Differences among Americans help make the United States strong. Sometimes, how-
ever, differences come between people. In the mid-1800s differences became disagree-

Teaching Chart 2: WORD-PART CLUES

1. Look for the ROOT WORD, which is a single word that cannot be broken
into smaller words or word parts. See if you know what the root word means.

2. Look for a PREFIX, which is a word part added to the beginning of a word
that changes its meaning. See if you know what the prefix means.

3. Look for a SUFFIX, which is a word part added to the end of a word that
changes its meaning. See if you know what the suffix means.

4. Put the meanings of the ROOT WORD and any PREFIX or SUFFIX
together and see if you can build the meaning of the word.

9. STRATEGIES TO EXPAND READING VOCABULARY

191

ments between Americans living in two regions — the North and the South. (Boehm et
al., 2000, p. 129)

Let’s say that you are reading and come to the word disagreements, and you
are not sure what it means. You can try to figure out its meaning using the
strategy in Chart 2. Step 1 says to look for the root word, which, I think, is
agree, and which means to share the same view or opinion of something
with another person. Step 2 says to look for a prefix. I see the prefix dis-,
which means not or opposite. Step 3 says to look for a suffix, and I see
-ments, which means the state or quality of something. Step 4 says to put
the word parts together. If dis- means not and agree means to have the
same view, then to disagree means to have a different or opposite opinion.

If we add -ments, then disagreements means the state of having a different
or opposite opinion.

Mr. Lopez explains that there are many prefixes and suffixes and that
one way to think about and learn them is to group them together into fami-
lies, noting thatjust as families of people have things in common, families of
prefixes and suffixes have meanings in common.

We’ll begin by looking at the Not Prefix Family, of which dis- is one
member. The top part of Chart 3 [displaying the chart] presents the Not
Prefix Family, which has seven members: dis-, un-, in-, im-, il-, ir-, and
non-. Next is the meaning of each prefix. As you can see, all of these pre-
fixes are grouped into the Not Prefix Family because they share the
common meaning of “not.” Let’s look at some example words. For in-
stance, dislike means to not like, impolite means the opposite of polite,
and so forth.

You may also see that some of the later example words get a little harder.
Does anyone know what inedible means? [Student responds, “not edible.”]
Good; it means not edible, but you have to know what edible means. Does
anyone know? [Student responds.] Yes, edible means something that is fit
to eat or eatable. [If no student knows the meaning, Mr. Lopez could provide
it, or a student could consult a dictionary or thesaurus.] Therefore, inedible
means something that is not fit to eat. For example, you could say that Be-
cause the potato salad was left out of the refrigerator all night, it spoiled and
was inedible.

Guided Practice. Mr. Lopez now has the students begin to use the
word-part strategy themselves but still under his supervision, so he can sup-
port, correct, or extend their application of it. Students also support one
another through dialogue. He has them turn to and read the following sec-
tion of their social studies book and continues with the lesson:

Teaching Chart 3: PREFIX AND SUFFIX FAMILIES

Family

Prefix

Suffix

Meaning

Example Words

“Not”

dis-

not, opposite

dislike, disloyal, disentangle, disparity, disrepute

Prefix

Family

un-

not, opposite

unafraid, unhappy, undefeated, unsympathetic

in-

not, opposite

invisible, incurable, inappropriate, inedible,
infallible

im-

not, opposite

imperfect, impolite, imprecise, immobile,
immortal

ii-

not, opposite

illogical, illegal, illiterate, illegible, illimitable

ir-

not, opposite

irresponsible, irreplaceable, irrestible,
irreleveant

non-

not, opposite

nonfiction, nonstop, nonliving, nonviolent,
nonverbal

“Position”

pre-

before

preview, predawn, prehistoric, prepublication

Prefix

Family

fore-

before

forewarn, foreleg, forenoon, forethought,
foreshadow

mid-

middle

midnight, midair, midland, midlife, midterm

inter-

between,

among

intercity, intermix, interaction, international,
intergalactic

post-

after

postwar, posttest, postdate, postoperative

“Over/

super-

over, high, big,

superheat, superhuman, superdeluxe,

Under”

extreme

supercompetitive

Prefix

Family

over-

more than, too
much

oversleep, overload, overheat, overqualified,
overexert

sub-

more than, too
much

subset, substation, subcontinent, subtropical

“Together

com-

together with

compress, composition, compatriot, compassion

Prefix

Family”

con-

together

conform, concentric, conjoin, configure

co-

together with

coauthor, cosign, coequal, cooperative

"Bad”

mis-

bad, wrong.

misuse, misread, misunderstand, mismanage.

Prefix

not

misquote

Family

mal-

bad, ill

malpractice, malodor, malnourished,
maladjusted

(continued on next page )

192

Teaching Chart 3: PREFIX AND SUFFIX FAMIFIES

Prefix

Family

Suffix

Meaning

Example Words

“Against

anti-

against

antifreeze, antibiotic, antisocial, antipollutiona

Prefix

Family”

contra-

against.

contraband, contradict, contraindicate,

opposite

contravene

“Number”

uni-

one

unicycle, unicorn, unidirectional, unicellular

Prefix

Family

mono-

one

monorail, monosyllable, monogram, monotone,
monocle

bi-

two

bicycle, biweekly, bicolor, biplane, bnomial

tri-

three

triangle, tricycle, tricolor, triathlon, tripod

quad-

four

quadrilateral, quadruplets, quadrennial,
quadrangle

penta-

five

pentagon, pentameter, pentagram, pentathlon

dec-

ten

decagon, decade, decapod, decibel

cent-

hundred

centimeter, centipede, centennial, centigram

semi-

half, part

semicircle, semiyearly, semiprivate, semiretired

Other

re-

again, back

redo, reorder, rearrange, reposition, reconnect

Useful

Prefixes

trans-

across, through transport, transatlantic, transmit, transfusion

de-

take away

defrost, deforest, deodorize, deflate, deactivate

ex-

out of, away
from

export, exhale, extinguish, exclude, excise

under-

low, to little

underweight, underachieve, underestimate,
underappreciated

“Person”

-ee

person who

employee, referee, trainee, interviewee

Suliix

Family

-er

person/thing
that does

writer, teacher, composer, reporter, consumer

something

-or

person/thing
that does

actor, governor, dictator, juror, donor

something

Other

Useful

-ful

full of,

characterized

joyful, beautiful, successful, delightful, pitiful

SufFixes

-Able

-ible

can be, worthy
of, inclined to

valuable, comfortable, dependable,
impressionable, terrible, responsible, reversible,
compatible

-less

without, free of helpless, hopeless, bottomless, expressionless

193

194

BAUMANN ETAL.

For most Africans, however, life was very hard no matter where they lived. They were
unwelcome in many places and often were treated unfairly. State laws in both the
North and South gave them little freedom. (Boehm et ai, 2000, p. 141)

Do you see any words that have prefixes from the Not Family? [Students
respond.] Yes, unwelcome and unfairly contain the prefix un-. So what do
these words mean? [Students respond “not welcome” and “not fairly.”]
Could someone reread the sentences and substitute “not welcome” for un-
welcome and “not fairly” for unfairly ? Do the sentences still make sense?
[Students respond.]

Practice using word-part clues by completing this paper. [He distributes
the Work Paper.] Let’s do the first one together. In the first row, you must
break the word into the Not Prefix and the root word. Where would you
break unafraid ? [Student responds.] Yes, unafraid can be broken into un-
wind afraid. Next write what the root means. What does afraid mean? [Stu-
dent responds scared, and students writes that.] Finally, what does the whole
word unafraid mean? [Student responds and students write not scared or
brave.] Good. Now complete the rest of the paper by working with a part-
ner. You may use a dictionary or thesaurus to help you figure out the
meanings of root words you may not know.

When students have finished, Mr. Lopez does a group-check of their
work, and he provides reinforcement and reteaching as necessary to guide
students in their use of the word-part strategy.

Independent Practice. As a final portion of the lesson, Mr. Lopez has
students apply the strategy on their own. He accomplishes this by having the
students read the next section in the textbook, identify words that contain
Not Prefixes, and write down the words and their meanings. The next day,
students share their lists, Mr. Lopez reviews the Word-Part Clues strategy,
and students explain the meanings of words they included on their lists.

As part of this discussion, Mr. Lopez notes that there are exceptions to
the word-part strategy. For example, he draws attention to understand and
imaginary, which are from page 142 of the social studies textbook. He has

Work Paper: “Not” Prefix Family Practice

Break the Word

Root Means

Full Word Means

un/afraid

scared

Not scared, brave

imperfect

illiterate

disunite

irreparable

9. STRATEGIES TO EXPAND READING VOCABULARY

195

students evaluate whether these words actually include the prefixes un- and
im- and can be figured out according to the word-part strategy. He uses
these “nonexamples” as an opportunity to point out that not all words that
begin with dis-, un-, in-, im-, il-, ir-, and non- are necessarily prefixes, display-
ing and discussing uncle, imagination, and iron to demonstrate that readers
must be careful when using the word-part strategy. He also asks students to
volunteer other nonexamples that they know. Finally, Mr. Lopez intro-
duces and teaches the additional prefix and suffix families on Teaching
Chart 3 in subsequent lessons, providing students cumulative practice on
the application of the word-part strategy as each new family is introduced.

Sample Lesson 3: Teaching Contextual Analysis

Background. Ms. Lee teaches science on an elementary school
fifth-grade team. Following a recent staff development series on the impor-
tance of vocabulary teaching and learning, Ms. Lee and her colleagues have
decided to emphasize vocabulary strategies in their reading/language arts
and subject-matter classes. Ms. Lee incorporates young adult trade books
into her science lessons, which are grounded on the adopted science text-
book. She has created a series of vocabulary lessons to integrate into an up-
coming science unit on life cycles and ecosystems. To extend the science
unit topics such as food chains, biomes, and animal behavior, her class will
read Jean Craighead George’s Julie’s Wolf Pack ( 1 997), the 6-year story of an
Alaskan wolf named Kapu and his pack. This lesson on contextual analysis
follows an introductory lesson like that taught by Ms. Jackson and several
word-part lessons like the preceding one by Mr. Lopez. Ms. Lee’s lesson ad-
heres to the same instructional framework (Duke & Pearson, 2002; Pearson
& Gallagher, 1983) as Sample Lessons 1 and 2. She also assumes that her
students possess general knowledge of context clues, but she is prepared to
review and reteach these basic concepts if necessary.

Verbal Explanation. Ms. Lee begins her explanation of the use of con-
text clues by embedding it within the overall vocabulary strategy presented
in prior lessons:

We have been learning about The Vocabulary Rule. [She calls students’ at-
tention to Chart I, rereads the three steps, and reviews each.] Let’s focus to-
day on Steps 1 and 3, which involve context clues. Context clues are words
or phrases that give readers clues or ideas to the meanings of other words.
For example, look at this sentence. [Ms. Lee writes the following (from
Baumann et al., 2002) on the board. ]When the sun hit its zenith, which means
right overhead, I could tell it was noon by the tremendous heat.

Can anyone tell me what the word zenith in the sentence means? [Student re-
sponds “right overhead. ”] Yes, it says right in the sentence that zenith means
right overhead. Sometimes context clues are very strong and give readers a

196

BAUMANN ET AL.

clear idea of what a word means, as in this example. Sometimes, however,
context clues are not so obvious, and readers must think hard to use them.
Still other times there may be no context clues for hard words, or there
might even be ideas that confuse you regarding a word’s meaning. Even
though context clues may differ in strength, they are important to learn
about, for they are useful tools to add to your Reading Strategy Toolbox to
help you figure out word meanings and understand selections you read.

Modeling. Next, Ms. Lee presents an excerpt from the science text-
book on a transparency. She invites a student to read it aloud and then pro-
ceeds to model the use of context clues.

A single organization in an environment is called an individual. One grasshopper in
a field is an individual. (Frank et al., 2002, p. B28)

I’m looking at the word individual and trying to figure out what it means. I
see that the author writes, “A single organization in an environment is
called an individual,” so I guess that individual refers to or means just one
living thing. This seems to be supported by the second sentence that says
that “One grasshopper in a field is an individual.” These seem to be pretty
good context clues. Could anyone look up individual in the dictionary?
[Student finds “a single organism as distinguished from a group”
(Merriam-Webster, 2002, p. 592).] All right; it seems as though our guess
from the use of context was a good one.

Ms. Lee then presents Chart 4, which tells about different kinds of con-
text clues, and continues with her instruction and modeling.

Could someone read number 1 on Chart 4? [Student reads the Definition
entry.] See how brambles is defined as “prickly vines and shrubs” just like
individual was defined as “a single organism in an environment.” So one
type of context clue is Definition, in which an author explains the mean-
ing of a word right in the sentences.

Let’s look at the other context clue types. [Ms. Lee has students read the re-
maining four types in Chart 4 and briefly discusses each.] Does anyone see
another context clue type for individual ? [She refers students back to the
transparency, and one student responds that there might be an Example
context clue.] Yes, the second sentence, “One grasshopper in a field is an
individual,” gives an example of an individual, in this case one individual
grasshopper. So sometimes there might be more than one kind of context
clue to help you out.

Guided Practice. In the third part of the instructional framework, Ms.
Lee invites students to use the context clue types to infer word meanings,

9. STRATEGIES TO EXPAND READING VOCABULARY

197

Teaching Chart 4: CONTEXT CLUES

Context Clue Type Example

1 . Definition: the author
explains the meaning of
the word right in the
sentence or selection.

When Sara was hiking, she accidentally walked
through a patch of brambles, prickly vines and
shrubs, which resulted in many scratches to her
legs.

2. Synonym: the author
uses a word similar in
meaning.

Josh walked into the living room and
accidentally tripped over the ottoman. Ele then
mumbled “I wish people would not leave the
footstool right in the middle of the room. That’s
dangerous!”

3. Antonym: the author
uses a word nearly
opposite in meaning.

The supermarket manager complained, “Why
do we have such a plethora of boxes of cereal
on the shelves? In contrast, we have a real
shortage of pancake and waffle mix. We’ve got to
do a better job ordering.”

4. Example: the author
provides one or more
example words or ideas.

There are many members of the canine family.
For example, wolves, foxes, coyotes, and pets such
as collies, beagles, and golden retrievers are all
canines.

5. General: the author
provides several words or
statements that give clues
to the word’s meaning.

It was a sultry day. The day was very hot and
humid. If you moved at all, you would break out
in a sweat. It was one of those days to drink water
and stay in the shade.

Note: Words in italic provide context clues for bold words.

calling students’ attention to another textbook excerpt she has presented
on a transparency:

Individuals of the same kind living in the same environment make up a population. All
the grasshoppers in a field are the grasshopper population. (Frank et al., 2002, p. B28).

Look at the word population and see if you can find a context clue for it?
[Student responds that there is a Definition clue.] Yes , population is defined
as “individuals of the same kind living in the same environment.” Does
anyone see another type of context clue? [Student responds that there is an
Example context clue in the second sentence.] Yes, the author has given
you Definition and Example context clues for population, just as the au-
thor had done for individual.

Now try to find and use context clues for the words instinct and learned be-
haviors, which also come from your science textbook. [Ms. Lee displays the
following transparency and distributes paper copies to the students.] On
your paper copy, underline Definition and Example context clues that
help you understand each word’s meaning.

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BAUMANN ET AL.

• Some behaviors are inherited and some are learned. An instinct is a behavior
that an organism inherits. An instinct isn’t unique to an individual. Instead, it
is a beha vior shared by an entire population, or by all the males or all the fe-
males of a population. Herding aphids, for example, is an instinct for certain
populations of ants. (Frank et al, 2002, p. B46)

• Many animals show learned behaviors, which are behaviors they have learned
from their parents, not inherited from them. Lions, for example, are born with
the instinct to kill and eat other animals. To survive, however, young lions must
learn hunting skills from adidt lions. Both the instinct to hunt and the learned
behavior, skillful hunting, help the lion survive. (Frank etal., 2002, p. B46)

Ms. Lee guides the students in their application of Definition and Exam-
ple context clues to infer the meanings of instinct and learned behaviors. She
provides support and reteaching as necessary. She also notes that some-
times authors use commas to set off definitions, as in learned behaviors, and
she makes a mental note to bring up the idea of Definition context clues and
the linguistic device of appositive later during their writing workshop.

Independent Practice. In her afternoon language arts period, Ms. Lee
provides students an opportunity to practice the context clue strategy. She
introduces Julie’s Wolf Pack (George, 1997), the story of a wolf pack in the
Alaskan arctic. This book connects nicely with the science unit, for it in-
cludes concepts such as food chains and the instinctual and learned behav-
iors of animals. Ms. Lee has students read the first section of Julie’s Wolf
Pack, which is titled “Kapu, The Alpha.” She writes alpha and beta on the
board and asks students to use what they learned about context clues in the
morning’s science lesson to see if they can figure what each word means
(e.g., beta is in the context, “ . . . Zing — the beta, or second in command — en-
joyed thejoke even more than Kapu....”; George, 1997, p. 4). She asks stu-
dents to be prepared to discuss whether they found context clues in the
book to help them figure out the meanings of alpha and beta. Ms. Lee plans
additional lessons for teaching the other context clues types in conjunction
with the science content and their reading of Julie’s Wolf Pack.

Sample Lesson 4: Integrating the Use of Word-Part and Context Clues

Background. Mr. Olson is a fifth-grade language arts teacher. He em-
ploys various instructional structures in his language arts classes, one of
which is literature circles (Daniels, 2002). Mr. Olson has identified seven re-
alistic fiction and humorous titles from which the students will select books
for the next round of literature circles. He plans to conduct briefbook talks
and to allow the students to browse and preview the titles before they select
books to read and form circles.

9. STRATEGIES TO EXPAND READING VOCABULARY

199

Similar to the other teachers described in the preceding sample lessons,
Mr. Olson has chosen to focus on vocabulary-learning strategies this aca-
demic year. Previously, he completed lessons on word-part and context
clues parallel to Sample Lessons 1-3. To extend this instruction, Mr. Olson
wishes to emphasize how students can integrate the use of word-part and
context clues as strategies for inferring or deriving word meanings. As a
complement to the book talks he will do, Mr. Olson has prepared the fol-
lowing lesson.

Verbal Explanation. Mr. Olson begins by reviewing with students the
content of the prior lessons on the use of word-part and context clues, em-
phasizing how the two sources of information can be used together to try to
determine the meanings of words:

You have learned about The Vocabulary Rule [pointing to Chart 1 ]. This in-
cludes three steps. [He reads and reviews how each step functions.] We have
also learned how to use word-part clues and context clues [pointing to
Charts 2 and 3, respectively] to help you figure out the meanings of new or
hard words. [He reads and reviews briefly the information on these charts.]

As we prepare today for our next set of literature circles, let’s use these
strategies for figuring out word meanings. All of you will take on the role
of word finder as one of your literature circle activities. You will identify
new and interesting vocabulary in the books you choose to read. We will
review how The Vocabulary Rule works, looking especially hard at how to
combine the use of context clues and any word-part clues to determine
word meanings. This should help you figure out the meanings of interest-
ing words you come across as you read the books you select.

Modeling. Mr. Olson models how to combine context clue and word-
part information to determine word meanings, using one of the titles avail-
able to students for the literature circles:

One of the books you might choose to read is The Music of Dolphins by Ka-
ren Hesse (1996). It’s a story of how a young girl, Mila, raised by dolphins,
learns what it is like to live with humans. Here’s how the story begins when
Mila is swimming with dolphins [excerpt presented on a transparency].

I swim out to them on the murmuring sea. As I reach them, their circle opens to let. me
in, then re-forms. The dolphins rise and blow, floating, one eye open, the other shut in-
half sleep. (Hesse, 1996, p.l)

Let’s use The Vocabulary Rule to see if we can figure out what the word
re-forms means. Step 1 says to look for context clues. Are there any avail-
able? [Student says that “their circle opens to let me in” provides the idea
that the circle opens and then closes back up ] All right; we get the idea

200

BAUMANN ET AL.

that there’s this circle of dolphins, which opens up to let Mila in and then
closes up.

What about word-part clues, Step 2? [Student responds that re-forms has the
root word forms and the prefix re-.} Yes. Does anyone know what the root
word form or forms means, especially when it is showing action and is a
verb as it is in this part of the story? [Student responds that it means to make
or take shape as when the P.E. teacher says, “Class, form a big circle.”] Good.
Now what about re-} What does it mean? [Student responds that it’s on
Chart 3 and means again or back.] Now put the word parts together. [Stu-
dent responds that re-forms might mean to form back, to form again, or to
make the shape of a circle again.]

Step 3 says to check the context again. Do the meanings for re-form you
suggested make sense? [Students affirm that they do.] Yes, we get the idea
that the dolphins are in a circle, which they open to let Mila in, and then
they make the circle again, or re-form it, to enclose her in it.

Guided Practice. Using the same text excerpt, Mr. Olson invites stu-
dents to participate more in the application of The Vocabulary Rule. He
also focuses on the flexible use of the strategy as well as its limits:

Please examine the word murmuring in this same section. Can we use The
Vocabulary Rule to help us figure out the meaning of it? [Mr. Olson guides
students as they work through the rule, recognizing that there are not very
strong context clues and no prefixes or suffixes that help identify its mean-
ing.] Here’s a situation in which The Vocabulary Rule may not work very
well. Does anyone have any guesses as to what murmuring means? [Stu-
dents suggest words such as calm, wavy, dark green, and bubbling.] Those are
good ideas, for all are adjectives that could describe how the sea might
look or act.

Does anyone know what the word murmur means? Could someone look in
the dictionary? [Student looks up murmur and reads, “a low indistinct but of-
ten continuous sound” and “a soft or gentle utterance” (Merriam-Webster,
2002, p. 764).] Hmm. So it seems like murmur has to do with a sound,
maybe a low, soft, and continuous sound. Would this make sense in the
sentence I swim out to them on the murmuring sea} [Student responds that
waves and water make sounds and that a writer might describe the sound of
the sea as being low and continuous.]

Here’s an example of where there are no prefixes or suffixes and the con-
text clues only tell you that the word describes the sea. This is a good les-
son when it comes to using context clues. Sometimes context clues are not
strong, and in those cases, the best you can do is to make a general guess as
to what a word means and read on to see if there might be more clues to
come. If you are really curious about a word’s meaning or you think that

9. STRATEGIES TO EXPAND READING VOCABULARY

201

the word is important to understanding a selection, then you might check
a dictionary or thesaurus, ask a friend, or ask me.

Independent Practice. Mr. Olson proceeds to conduct book talks on
the additional books he has identified for possible literature circles. Follow-
ing the book talks, he invites students to practice The Vocabulary Rule by
using context and word-part clues (when applicable) to identify the mean-
ings of incapable in The Watsons Go to Birmingham — 1963 (Curtis, 1995, p.
24), flailed in Bad Girls (Voigt, 1996, p. 35), inexhaustible in Knots in My Yo-yo
String (Spinelli, 1998, p. 11), sensitivity in Later , Gator (Yep, 1995, p. 63),
peevish in Cousins (Hamilton, 1990, p. 73), and improvise in Yellow Bird and
Me (Hansen, 1986, p. 31).

In subsequent vocabulary lessons, Mr. Olson reinforces the process of
analyzing affixed words into meaningful parts, referring to Charts 2 and
3, and the process of identifying different types of and combinations of
context clues. He invites students to examine larger text segments as
necessary to identify context clues that appear prior to and after an unfa-
miliar word. He also reiterates the notion that context clues vary in
power, and he reminds the students that some words may have mislead-
ing or “pseudo” prefixes. After literature circles have been formed and
initiated, Mr. Olson provides review of word-part and context clues as
needed, while having students assume more responsibility for identify-
ing and applying The Vocabulary Rule.

CONCLUSION

We conclude this presentation with the acknowledgment of several impor-
tant qualifications of and extensions to the ideas we present. First, one must
keep in mind that there are other components to a comprehensive vocabu-
lary instructional program beyond teaching the word-learning strategies of
word-part and contextual analysis. For instance, if it were one’s goal to
teach specific words in order to enhance comprehension of a given text,
then word-part and contextual analysis are not efficient strategies; instead,
one should teach those words directly (Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002;
Stahl & Fairbanks, 1 986). It is important, therefore, to recognize that differ-
ent instructional goals require different teaching strategies, and a total vo-
cabulary program ought to encompass multiple objectives and pedagogical
perspectives (Baumann, Kame’enui, & Ash, 2003). We believe that Graves’s
(2000) four components — engaging in wide reading, teaching individual
words, teaching word-learning strategies, and fostering word conscious-
ness — provide a useful framework for crafting a balanced, multifaceted vo-
cabulary instructional program.

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BAUMANN ETAL.

Second, the instructional content we present would need to be expanded
across time. For example, subsequent word-part instruction should move
beyond simple root words (i.e., free morphemes), prefixes, and suffixes to
include Latin and Greek word roots (e.g., vis, vid, light, to see, as in video,
television, visible, preview, evidence, etc.). Templeton’s (2004) suggestions for
promoting the “vocabulary-spelling connection” provide important ways
to extend vocabulary instruction to more complex morphemic associations.
Similarly, we refer readers to other excellent sources that address the limits
to and place of instruction in context clues (Beck et al., 2002, chapter 6) and
provide additional instructional strategies (e.g., Blachowicz & Fisher, 2002,
chapter2; Durkin, 1981, chapter 2;Johnson& Pearson, 1978, chapter 6).

Third, it is important to emphasize that, in practice, it would take more
than four lessons to teach the various context clue types and word-part ele-
ments in depth. Graves (2000), for example, suggests spending 2 to 4 hours
a week during initial instruction in word-learning strategies, with decreas-
ing time weekly later on. Effective instruction in word-part and context
clues should be efficient but long-term (Graves, 2000), so that students can
internalize the strategies and receive the support required to apply them
across multiple contexts over time. On the other hand, it is important to
keep word-part and context clue instruction “in its place,” that is, not dedi-
cating inordinate amounts of time to such lessons. We believe that the ma-
jority of language arts time should be spent on literature discussion and
appreciation, and likewise most content lessons should involve subject mat-
ter inquiry and study.

Finally, we emphasize that the sample lessons are just that — exemplars
from which teachers might develop their own lessons that match their stu-
dents’ needs and their own instructional goals. Effective vocabulary instruc-
tion is highly context-dependent. In other words, it is determined by a
teacher’s judgment about her or his students’ knowledge, skills, and needs;
by the nature of the specific reading, language arts, and subject-matter cur-
riculum; and by a teacher’s unique teaching style. Thus, there is no
one-size-fits-all set of lessons that can be constructed and implemented
across countless teaching and learning situations. Quality vocabulary in-
struction occurs ultimately when teachers who are knowledgeable in liter-
acy processes, curriculum content and goals, and sound reading and
language arts pedagogy craft their own vocabulary lessons that accommo-
date their students’ unique learning needs.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The research on which this chapter is based was supported by a Field-Initi-
ated Study (PR/ AWARD NUMBER R305T990271) administered by the Na-
tional Institute for Student Achievement, Curriculum and Assessment, of the

9. STRATEGIES TO EXPAND READING VOCABULARY

203

Office of Educational Research and Improvement within the U.S. Depart-
ment of Education. The research and practice suggestions expressed herein
do not necessarily reflect the position or policies of the National Institute for
Student Achievement, Curriculum and Assessment, the Office of Educa-
tional Research and Improvement, or the U.S. Department of Education.

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PERSPECTIVES ON WHICH WORDS
TO CHOOSE FOR INSTRUCTION

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Chapter

Choosing Words to Teach'

Isabel L. Beck
Margaret G. McKeown
University of Pittsburgh

Linda Kucan

Appalachian State University

The teacher’s edition for a fourth-grade anthology suggests teaching the
following words before inviting students to read an excerpt from Char-
lotte’s Web (White, 1952): comfort, cunning, endure, friendless, frolic, lonely,
soaked, and stealthily. Why do you think these words were selected? One
obvious reason for selecting words to teach is that students do not know
the words. Although cunning, endure, frolic, and stealthily are probably un-
familiar to most fourth graders, comfort, friendless, lonely, and soaked are
probably not. Familiarity does not seem to be the principle used to make
the selection. What about importance or usefulness? Are the selected
words useful for writing or talking? Would the words be important to
know because they appear in other texts with a high degree of frequency?
Some — but not all — of the words might be considered useful or impor-
tant. Thus, the question remains: why were the words selected? The pur-

'At the Focus on Vocabulary Forum in Dallas in October 2003, Isabel Beck reported on a vo-
cabulary study that she and her colleague Margaret McKeown had conducted in kindergarten
and first-grade classrooms. Results of the study showed these very young children could learn,
and relished learning, very sophisticated words, words that are not typically part of young chil-
dren’s language experiences. Drs. Beck and McKeown are presently writing a journal article
about the findings of that study. (continued.)

209

210

BECK, McKEOWN, KUCAN

pose of this chapter is to consider what principles might be used for
selecting words to teach.

USEFUL WORDS

As a way to begin thinking about which words to teach, consider that
words in the language have different levels of utility. In this regard, we
have found our notion of tiers to be one helpful lens through which to
consider words for instructional attention. Tier One consists of the most
basic words — clock, baby, happy — rarely requiring instruction in school.
Tier Three includes words whose frequency of use is quite low, often be-
ing limited to specific domains — isotope , lathe, peninsula — and probably
best learned when needed in a content area. Tier Two words are
high-frequency words for mature language users — coincidence, absurd, in-
dustrious — and, thus, instruction in these words can add productively to
an individual’s language ability.

IDENTIFYING TIER TWO WORDS IN TEXTS

T o get an idea of the process of identifying Tier Two words, consider an ex-
ample. Below is the opening paragraph of a retelling of an old tale
(Kohnke, 2001, p. 12) about a donkey who is under a magical spell that
forces him to do the chores for a group of lazy servants. The story would
likely be of interest to third and fourth graders:

Johnny Harrington was a kind master who treated his servants fairly. He was also a
successful wool merchant, and his business required that he travel often. In his ab-
sence, his servants would tend to the fields and cattle and maintain the upkeep of his
mansion. They performed their duties happily, for they felt fortunate to have such a be-
nevolent and trusting master.

The underlined words are those we identified as consistent with the no-
tion of Tier Two words. That is, most of the words are likely to appear fre-
quently in a wide variety of texts and in the written and oral language of
mature language users. (Note: We chose this paragraph because there were

(continued) This chapter, “Choosing Words to Teach," is from Isabel L. Beck, Margaret G.
McKeown, and Linda Kucan’s Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction (2002), re-
printed with permission oFThe Guilford Press: New York. The chapter is relevant to discussions
at the Focus on Vocabulary Forum about choosing words to teach and the value of teaching so-
phisticated words.

10. CHOOSING WORDS TO TEACH

211

so many candidate Tier Two words; however, most grade-level material
would not have so many words in only one paragraph.)

One “test” of whether a word meets the Tier Two criterion of being a use-
ful addition to students’ repertoires is to think about whether the students
already have ways to express the concepts represented by the words. Would
students be able to explain these words using words that are already well
known to them? If that is the case, it suggests that the new words offer stu-
dents more precise or mature ways of referring to ideas they already know
about. One way to answer the question is to think about how average third
and fourth graders would talk about the concepts represented by the Tier
Two words. We think that students would be likely to offer the explanations
shown here.

Tier Two Words

merchant

required

tend

maintain

performed

fortunate

benevolent

Students’ Likely Expressions

Salesperson or clerk

Have to

Take care of

Keep going

did

lucky

kind

Adding the 7 target words to young students’ vocabulary repertoires would
seem to be quite productive, because learning the words would allow students
to describe with greater specificity people and situations they already have
some familiarity with. However, notice that these words are not simple syn-
onyms of the familiar ones, but represent more precise or more complex forms
of the familiar words. For example, maintain means more than “keep going,”
but “to continue something in its present condition or at its present level.” Be-
nevolent has the dimension of tolerance as well as kindness.

SELECTING FROM A POOL OF WORDS

The decision about which words to teach must also take into account how
many words to teach in conjunction with any given text or lesson. Given that
students are learning vocabulary in social studies and science as well as read-
ing or language arts, there needs to be some basis for limiting the number of
words so that students will have the opportunity to learn some words well.

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BECK, McKEOWN, KUCAN

Consider which of the words will be most useful in helping students un-
derstand it. For the seven words noted before, our thinking is that fortunate
is particularly important because the fact that the servants thought they
were lucky is an important condition of the story. Similarly, benevolent plays
an important role in setting up the story, as the servants appreciate their
master’s kindness, and they do not want to upset their pleasant living situa-
tion. If one other word were to be selected, a good choice would be merchant.
Merchant is a word that comes up in fourth- and fifth-grade social studies
textbooks in discussions of colonization of the Americas (e.g., European
merchants were eager to locate new resources like tobacco and indigo, which
could be found in the colonies. Colonial merchants were dismayed by the
taxes on English goods, which meant higher prices for their customers but
no more profit for themselves.).

The other candidate words, tend, required, performed, and maintain, are
also words of strong general utility , and the choice of whether to include any
more words is based solely on considering how many words one thinks stu-
dents could usefully handle.

You Try It

Below is another excerpt from the tale about the donkey under the magical
spell described earlier (Kohnke, 200 1 , p. 1 2). You might find it useful to try
your hand at identifying Tier Two words. You will get to see our choices af-
ter the excerpt, so that you can compare your selections with ours.

The servants would never comment on this strange occurrence [finding the kitchen
clean even though none of them were seen doing the cleaning.], each servant hoping
the other had tended to the chores. Never would they mention the loud noises they’d
hear emerging from the kitchen in the middle of the night. Nor would they admit to
pulling the covers under their chins as they listened to the sound of haunting laughter
that drifted down the halls to their bedrooms each night. In reality, they knew there was
a more sinister reason behind their good fortune.

Which words did you select? Trying to be all-inclusive, selecting any
words that might fit Tier Two, we chose: comment, occurrence, tended, men-
tion, emerging, admit, haunting, reality, sinister, and fortune. We considered
them Tier Two words as we viewed them as fairly “general but sophisti-
cated words.” That is, they are not the most basic, common ways of ex-
pressing ideas, but they are familiar to mature language users as
ordinary as opposed to specialized language. The concepts embodied in
each word are ones that students already have some understanding of, as
shown here.

1 0. CHOOSING WORDS TO TEACH

213

Tier Two Words

comment

occurrence

tended

mention

emerging

admit

haunting

Reality

sinister

fortune

Students’ Likely Expressions

Something someone has to say
Something happening
Took care of
tell

Coming out

To say you did something
scary

Being read

scary

luck

N ow, the notion of tiers of words is not a precise one, andthelines between
tiers are not clearcut, so your selection may not match ours. Thinking in
terms of tiers is just a starting point — a way of framing the task of choosing
candidate words for instruction. Even within Tier Two, some words will be
more easily familiar and some will be more useful than others. For example,
our hunch is that admit, reality, and fortune are likely known to most fourth or
fifth graders; that tended is not usually used in a way that is key to understand-
ing, and that fifth graders may already associate haunting with scary things — a
Halloween context — which is fitting for this story. Thus we ended up with:
comment, occurrence, mention, emerging, and sinister. We judged the first four of
these to be most useful across a range of contexts, and we chose sinister be-
cause it is a strong word with emotional impact that is used in literature to de-
scribe fictional characters as well as in nonfiction, such as when describing a
group’s sinister plans to invade another’s territory.

Some Criteria for Identifying Tier Two Words

Importance and Utility: words that are characteristic of mature language
users and appear frequently across a variety of domains.

Instructional Potential: words that can be worked with in a variety of ways
so that students can build rich representations of them and of their connec-
tions to other words and concepts.

Conceptual Understanding: words for which students understand the gen-
eral concept but provide precision and specificity in describing the concept.

CONSIDERATIONS BEYOND TIER TWO

There is nothing scientific about the way words are identified for attention
in school materials. Some words are obvious candidates, such as selecting
the word representation for a social studies unit on the American Revolution-

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BECK, McKEOWN, KUCAN

ary War era. But beyond the words that play major roles, choices about what
specific set of words to teach are quite arbitrary. Teachers should feel free to
use their best judgment, based on an understanding of their students’
needs, in selecting words to teach. They should also feel free to treat words
in different ways. Tier Two words are not only words that are important for
students to know, they are also words that can be worked with in a variety of
ways so that students have opportunities to build rich representations of
them and of their connections to other words and concepts.

In many texts, however, there may be several unfamiliar words that do
not meet the criteria for Tier Two words but which nevertheless require
some attention if students are to understand a selection. Consider the fol-
lowing excerpt from the short story “My Father, the Entomologist” (Ed-
wards, 2001, p. 5):

“Oh, Bea, you look as lovely as a longhorn beetle lifting off for flight. And I must admit
your antennae are adorable. Yes, you’ve metamorphosed into a splendid young lady. ”

Bea rolled her eyes and muttered, “My father, the entomologist. ”

“I heard that, Bea. It’s not nice to mumble. Unless you want to be called a ... Mumble
Bea!” Bea’s father slapped his knee and hooted. Bea rolled her eyes a second time.

The first day of fifth grade, and my father tells me I look like a longhorn beetle. Bea
shuddered at the thought. She absolutely detested bugs.

Why does Dad have to be obsessed with insects ? She wondered. Why not football or golf
like most fathers? The answer was simple. Bea’s dad was weird. His weirdness made
the whole family weird. And he had made Bea the weirdest of all when he named her
Bea Ursula Gentry ... B.U.G.

Suddenly, Bea felt angry. She flew into the kitchen where her father sat reading
Insectology. She hurled her backpack onto the table.

“You know what, Dad?” she asked, tugging on one of her pigtails, “these are not an-
tennae! Your bumper sticker, ‘Have you hugged a bug today?’ is not cool! And I de-
spise eating in the dining room with all those dead bugs pinned to the walls!”

With fourth- and fifth-grade students in mind, we have divided the 12
underlined words from the story into the following three categories:

longhorn beetle obsessed

antennae detest

metamorphosed despise

entomologist

splendid

shuddered

mumble

muttered

1 0. CHOOSING WORDS TO TEACH

215

The first column contains words that are important to the story, but that
can be dealt with very quickly. Longhorn beetle does not call for atten-
tion — students will understand it as a type of insect, and more knowledge is
not needed to understand the story.

Antennae and entomologist are needed to understand the situation the au-
thor uses to set up the story, but the two words can be quickly described as
“those things that stick out from an insect’s head” and “a scientist who stud-
ies insects.” More precise information is not required for this selection.

Metamorphosed can be explained as simply changed or grown, but to get
the humor intended here, the information needs to be given that it is the
type of change that certain insects go through, such as when a caterpillar
changes into a butterfly. But, again, no more precision is required, and it is
not the place to go through the elaborate explanation about the process or
how it occurs. This should occur in a science unit about insects.

The words in the next two columns have more general applications and
are consistent with Tier Two words. The words in the second column — ob-
sessed, detest, and despise — are most substantively related to the plot of the
story, which is about a father who is obsessed with bugs and his daughter
who detests and despises them. Detest and despise create a kind of “two-fer”
situation, in that they are very close synonyms that could be introduced to-
gether and used interchangeably.

The rest of the words do not play key roles in the story, nor is their unfa-
miliarity likely to interfere with comprehension. So, which other words are
attended to, if any, is simply a matter of choice and convenience. That is, a
decision as to number of words taught might be made on the basis of how
many a teacher wants to make room for at the moment. Factors in this deci-
sion may include, for example, how large the current vocabulary load is in
the classroom, the time of year, and the number and difficulty of other con-
cepts presently being dealt with in the curriculum.

Assume that there is room for several more words from this story. It
might be convenient to teach splendid and shuddered, because they could take
advantage of concepts already established for the story. Shuddered fits well,
as something that is detested might well make one shudder. Splendid is also
a good fit, as in: “Bea’s dad thinks bugs are splendid, but Bea detests them.”
Or “If you’re obsessed about something, you might think it’s splendid.”
These two words would also be favored because they have a bit more dimen-
sion to them than mumble, muttered, or hurl. This is not to say that mumble,
muttered, or hurl should not be taught, but simply that, presented with the
choice of words to work with, splendid and shuddered seem to lend themselves
to a wider diversity of possible uses.

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BECK, McKEOWN, KUCAN

WHAT IF THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH WORDS?

Now let us consider a text that does not seem to offer much for vocabulary
development because all of the words in the text are familiar to students. An
approach in such a case could be selecting words whose concepts fit in with
the story even though the words do not appear. For example, if the story
features a character who is a loner, introduce the words hermit, isolated, or
solitary, if a problem is dealt with, present it as a dilemma or conflict-, if a char-
acter is hard-working, consider if she is diligent and conscientious. Think in
terms of words that coordinate with, expand, or play off of words, situations,
or characters in a text.

Bringing in words whose concepts fit with a story is especially salient
when young children are just learning to read, and there are only the sim-
plest words in their text. Consider a story in which two children (Pam and
Matt) tiy on a number silly hats, some of which are very big, and two of
which are exactly alike. A number of words came to mind, and we chose, ab-
surd, enormous, and identical. We suggest how those words might be intro-
duced to young children.

• In the story, Pam and Matt had very, very silly hats. Another way to
say that something is very, very silly is to say that it is absurd. When some-
thing is absurd, it is so silly it’s hard to believe.

• Some of the hats that Pam and Matt wore were so big that all you
could see were their feet. Another way to say that something is very, very
big is to say that it is enormous. Enormous, means “very big — very, very big.”

• Pam and Matt put on red hats that were almost exactly alike. A way
to say that two things are exactly alike is to say that they are identical.
Identical means “exactly alike.”

Words do not need to be completely unfamiliar to students in order to be
good candidates for instructional attention. Words might be selected for at-
tention that may be familiar to students but that illustrate the power of an
author’s choice of words to reveal information about a character or situa-
tion. For example, notice the underlined words in the following excerpt,
which is taken from a sixth-grade unit on Egypt (Banks et al., 1997, p. 87).
The topic is Hatshepsut, a female pharaoh.

Hatshepsut

Hatshepsut was a princess and the wife of a pharaoh. She seized the chance to become
pharaoh herself when her husband died. Her young stepson was supposed to become
the new pharaoh of Egypt. Hatshepsut proclaimed, however, that the ten-year-old boy
was too young to rule on his own. In this way she succeeded in being named co-ruler.

10. CHOOSING WORDS TO TEACH

217

Hatshepsut’s Tradingjourney

In the eighth year of her reign, Hatshepsut organized the biggest trading expedition of
her career. An expedition is a group of people who go on a trip for a set reason. The
goal of Hatshepsut’s expedition was to trade with Egypt’s neighbors to the south in
Punt. Historians think Punt may have been in what is today Ethiopia or Somalia. . . .

The huge caravan of scribes, soldiers, artists, and attendants set off along a dusty road
that led east to the Red Sea. There they loaded their cargo onto five sleek ships for the
long journey south.

The only word identified for attention by the publisher in this segment is
expedition, which is explained within the text. The two underlined words —
seized and sleek — offer possibilities for drawing students’ attention to the ef-
fect of an author’s choice of words and help the topic come alive.

That Hatshepsut “seized” the chance to become pharaoh reveals some-
thing about her character that would make for interesting discussion. For
example: “It says that Hatshepsut seized the chance to become pharaoh.
Seize means ‘to grab something or take control of it firmly.’ So, what does
that tell us about Hatshepsut? Was she afraid of being pharaoh? Do you
think she was eager to become a ruler?”

Similarly, that the expedition sailed off in “sleek” ships communicates the
prosperity and style of the Egyptian civilization. Discussion could prompt
thinking in that direction: “Sleek is a word used to describe something grace-
ful and stylish, that marks its owner as well-to-do. ‘They sailed off in sleek
ships.’ What picture does that give us of Egypt?” Additionally, words like am-
bitious and calculating could be introduced to characterize Hatshepsut.

AN EXAMPLE FOR OLDER STUDENTS

The examples provided thus far were drawn from texts for readers in the in-
termediate grades. Although the same principles apply to selecting words
from texts for students in the upper grades, they may play out a bit differ-
ently. Thus, we present a discussion of the words that might be selected for
Agatha Christie’s “In a Glass Darkly” ( 1 934), a story that is likely to be of in-
terest to students in eighth or ninth grade. It is a rather brooding tale that
moves from a murderous premonition to unrequited love, jealousy, and
near tragedy before resolving happily. The story begins as the narrator,
while staying with a friend, sees a vision of a man strangling a woman. The
woman turns out to be his friend’s sister, with whom he falls in love. But she
is engaged — to the man he saw in his vision. He tells her of the vision, and
she breaks her engagement. For years, the narrator is unable to tell her of
his feelings for her. Finally, love is revealed and they marry. But he is deeply
jealous, a feeling that results in his nearly strangling his wife — until he no-
tices in the mirror that he is playing out the scene of his premonition.

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BECK, McKEOWN, KUCAN

The language of the story is sophisticated but not particularly difficult.
Most words will likely be at least passingly familiar to many readers in
eighth or ninth grade. However, many of the words are probably not of high
frequency in the students’ vocabularies, and, thus, an opportunity presents
itself for students to work with these words and gain fluency with them.
Here are the 30 words from the story that we identified as Tier Two words:

essential

intervened

attractive

valet

gravely

disinterested

absurdly

entrenched

savage

endurance

appreciated

decent

rambling

throttling

upshot

scornfully

endangering

gloomy

unwarranted

revelation

altered

well-off

prospect

complication

leisure

devotedly

inevitable

sullen

abuse

sobering

Of the 30 words, we decided to focus on 1 0 of them: essential, altered, well-off,
devoted, entrenched, inevitable, sobering, revelation, upshot, and disinterested.

Ten words may be a lot to develop effectively for one story, but we see it as
a workable number because many of them will already be familiar. Also, two
of the words could be introduced rather briefly with little or no follow-up
work. These are: altered, which could be defined simply as “permanently
changed,” and well-off, which could simply be given the synonym wealthy.
The reason for attention to these two words is that they could cause confu-
sion at the local level in the story if not understood.

Two other words were also chosen because they could cause confusion in a
part of the story. These are upshot and disinterested. The narrator talks of the
upshot of his decision to tell Sylvia that he saw a vision of her fiance choking
her. Because of the context and feel of the story, we thought upshot might be
interpreted as some sort of physical violence, instead of simply “the result of.”
The word disinterested meaning “not being involved in a particular situation”
is often confused with uninterested, meaning “not interested,” and the story
provides a good opportunity to introduce that distinction.

Five words seem to convey the mood and emotional impact of story de-
velopments: devoted, entrenched, inevitable, sobering, and revelation. And the
word essential was chosen because “one essential detail” turns out to be a
key plot device — that is, in his premonition, the narrator notices a scar on
the left side of the choker’s face. The essential detail he fails to account for
is that he is seeing this in a mirror, so the scar is actually on the right. The

10. CHOOSING WORDS TO TEACH

219

five words can be used to describe the plot as follows: The narrator is de-
voted to Sylvia, although entrenched in a jealousy that causes inevitable prob-
lems. Only a sobering revelation (that essential detail) saves him, his
marriage, and his wife.

A couple of points should be emphasized here. The words were selected
not so much because they are essential to comprehension of the story, but
because they seem most closely integral to the mood and plot. In this way,
the vocabulary work provides for both learning new words and for enrich-
ing understanding of literature. This decision was made possible because
there was a large pool of words to choose from. Sometimes choices are more
limited, and sometimes the best words are not so tied to the story. In such
cases, a decision might be made to select words that seem most productive
for vocabulary development despite their role in the story.

For the six words we consider to be most important to teach, some char-
acteristics of the words themselves also drove our selections. Sobering was se-
lected because its strongest sense for students might be as the opposite of
drunk. So, the context of the story provides a good opportunity to over-
come that and introduce its more general sense. The others, essential, de-
voted, entrenched, inevitable, and revelation, have wide potential for use, and
are not limited to specific situations or stereotypic contexts. Yet, they seem
to be strongly expressive words that can bring emotional impact to contexts
in which they are used.

AN EXAMPLE FOR YOUNG CHILDREN

We turn now to selecting words to enhance the vocabulary repertoires of
young children — those who are just learning to read. We make two immedi-
ate distinctions between vocabulary work with intermediate and older stu-
dents and work with students in the earliest grades, typically kindergarten
through early second grade. The first is that we find the best sources for new
vocabulary are tradebooks that teachers read aloud to children rather than
the books children read on their own. The second distinction is that in con-
trast to introducing words before a story, in our work with young children
we have found it most appropriate to engage in vocabulary activities after a
story has been read.

There are two reasons we decided that vocabulary activities for young
children should occur after a story. First, if a word is needed for compre-
hension, inasmuch as the teacher is reading the story, she is available to
briefly explain the word at the point in the story where it is needed (e.g.,
“A ukulele is a kind of guitar.” “When ducks molt, they lose their feathers
and can’t fly until new ones grow.”). Second, because the words that will
be singled out for vocabulary attention are words that are very likely un-
familiar to young children, the context from the story provides a rich ex-

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BECK, McKEOWN, KUCAN

ample of the word’s use and thus strong support for children’s initial
learning of the word.

The basis for selecting words from tradebooks for young children is that
they are Tier Two words and words that are not too difficult to explain to
young children. Here, we present our thinking for selecting three words for
instructional attention from The Popcorn Dragon (Thayer, 1 953), a story tar-
geted to kindergartners.

In our review of The Popcorn Dragon for Tier Two candidate words, we
first identified the following seven: accidentally, drowsy, pranced, scorched, en-
vious, delighted, and forlorn. From the pool of seven, we decided to provide
instruction for three: envious, delighted, and forlorn. We considered three is-
sues in making our choices. First, we determined that the concept repre-
sented by each word was understandable to kindergartners. That is,
five-year-olds understand: wanting something someone else has (envious);
being very happy (delighted), and being very sad (forlorn ). Second, it is not
too difficult to explain the meanings of those words in very simple lan-
guage, as illustrated in the previous sentence! And third, each word has ex-
tensive possibilities for use. In particular, the words are found in numerous
fairy tales. That is, there is often some character who is envious of another,
and characters who are delighted or forlorn about the turn of events. The
words, however, are not restricted to make-believe; they can all be used in
describing people in common situations.

We found the other candidate words — pranced, accidentally, scorched, and
drowsy — interesting and potentially useful, but, relative to the words we
chose, we saw scorched and pranced as narrower, and drowsy and accidentally as
not quite so interesting as the ones we chose. We hasten to make the point
that this is all a matter of judgment. The final decisions about which words
to teach may not be as important as thoughtful consideration about why to
teach certain words and not others.

WHAT ABOUT WORDS BEING ON GRADE LEVEL?

A concern that surfaces in deciding which words to teach is whether words
are appropriate for students at certain grade levels. Key to this concern is to
understand that no formula exists for selecting age-appropriate vocabulary
words despite lists that identify “fifth-grade words” or “seventh-grade
words.” There is simply no basis for determining which words students
should be learning at different grade levels. For example, that coincidence is
an “eighth-grade word” according to a frequency index means only that
most students do not know the word until eighth grade. It does not mean
that students in seventh or even third grade cannot learn the word or
should not be taught it.

10. CHOOSING WORDS TO TEACH

221

There are only two things that make a word inappropriate for a certain
level. One is not being able to explain the meaning of a word in known
terms. If the words used to explain a target word are likely unknown to the
students, then the word is too hard.

The other consideration for word selection is that the words be useful
and interesting — ones that students will be able to find uses for in their ev-
eryday lives. Of course, this is a matter of judgment, best decided by those
who know the individual students. Work we have done with kindergarten
and first-grade children shows that sophisticated words can be successfully
taught to young children.

For example, kindergartners readily applied nuisance to disruptive class-
mates, and identified when a commotion occurred in the hall. First graders
could easily discern argumentative peers from those who acted dignified!

IN SUMMARY

In evaluating words as possible candidates for instruction, here are three
things to keep in mind:

1. How generally useful is the word? Is it a word that students are
likely to meet often in other texts? Will it be of use to students in de-
scribing their own experiences? For example, students are likely to
find more situations in which to apply typical and dread than portage
and brackish.

2. How does the word relate to other words, to ideas that students
know or have been learning? Does it directly relate to some topic of study
in the classroom? Or might it add a dimension to ideas that have been de-
veloped? For example, what might knowing the word hubris bring to a
middle school student’s understanding of the battles at Lexington and
Concord, which set the Revolutionary War in motion?

3. What does the word bring to a text or situation? What role does the
word play in communicating the meaning of the context in which it is
used? A word’s meaning might be necessary for understanding a text. Or
understanding its meaning might allow an enriched insight about the sit-
uation being presented, such as in the case of Hatshepsut’s seizing power
and riding in sleek ships.

Keep in mind that there is no formula for selecting age-appropriate vo-
cabulary words despite lists that identify “fifth-grade words” or “sev-
enth-grade words.” As long as the word can be explained in known words
and can apply to what students might talk or write about, it is an appropri-
ate word to teach.

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BECK, McKEOWN, KUCAN

Your Turn

We invite you to use what you have learned in this chapter to make some de-
cisions about which words you will teach.

1 . Select a text that your students will be reading. It can be a story, or an
excerpt from a chapter book or novel, or a social studies textbook.

2. List all the words that are likely to be unfamiliar to students.

3. Analyze the word list.

• Which words can be categorized as Tier Two words?

• Which of the Tier Two words are most necessary for comprehension?

• Are there other words needed for comprehension? Which ones?

4. On the basis of your analysis, which words will you teach?

• Which will need only brief attention?

• Which will you give more elaborate attention to?

REFERENCES

Banks, J. A., Beyer, B. K., Contreras, G., Craven, J., Ladson-Billings, G., McFarland,
M. A., & Parker, S. C. (1997). World: Adventures in time and place. New York:
Macmillan/McGraw-Hill.

Christie, A. (1934). In a glass darkly. In L. Mountain, S. Crawley, & E. Fry (Eds.),
Jamestown Heritage Readers (Book H, pp. 160-167). Providence, RI: Jamestown
Publishers.

Edwards, A. (2001). My father, the entomologist. Cricket, 28{ 10), 5-9.

Kohnke, J. M. (2001). The pooka of allihies. Cricket, 28(7), 12-16.

Thayer, J. (1953). The popcorn dragon. New York: Morrow.

White, E. B. (1952). Charlotte’s web. New York: Harper & Row.

Chapter

Size and Sequence

in Vocabulary Development:

Implications for Choosing Words for Primary
Grade Vocabulary Instruction

Andrew Biemiller
University of Toronto

The importance of English vocabulary for success in English-speaking
schools cannot be overestimated. The authors of the National Reading Panel
(2000) wrote: “Benefits in understanding text by applying letter-sound cor-
respondences to printed material come about only if the target word is in the
learner’s oral vocabulary, (ch. 4, p. 3)” Chall, a well-known reading scholar,
argued that written vocabulary test was effectively equivalent to reading com-
prehension testing because the correlation between the two was so high (at
r = .95 in my own studies), that it is not necessary to test comprehension.
Hazenberg and Hulstijn (1996) reported that children with vocabularies of
less than 11,000 root words were unable to succeed in college programs.
(They noted that this study was done in the Netherlands, and that somewhat
higher vocabularies would probably be needed in English.)

A simple example from my own research illustrates the relationship be-
tween basic reading skills and vocabulary. When we (Biemiller & Slonim,
2001) conducted our second normative study, we included a simple test of
oral reading of 60 words after orally testing vocabulary meanings of the same
words. We found that from Grade 3 on, 95% of children could read more
words than they could define. Figure 11.1 illustrates this relationship. One re-

223

224

BIEMILLER

■o

Proportion of words known orally

FIG. 11.1. Defining versus reading words, Grades 3-6.

gression line in the figure simply shows the level of vocabulary known. The
other regression line shows accuracy in reading the words tested for vocabu-
lary. Although the number of words read correctly was correlated with the
number of words defined (r = .45, N = 92), after Grade 2, most children
could read more words than they could explain. The average difference was
25% to 30% more words read correctly than understood (see Table 11.1).

In another study (Biemiller, 1999), I found a correlation ofr = .81 (68%
of variance) between vocabulary size and reading comprehension (Cana-
dian Test of Basic Skills) across Grades 1-5. Adding grade level to the equa-
tion brings the equation to r = .86 (74%). Thus grade adds 6% of reading
comprehension variance, slightly affecting comprehension performance
over and above that predicted by vocabulary, but not very much.

These findings make it not surprising that whereas identifying words in
print in first grade was not predictive of reading comprehension many years

1 1 . CHOOSING WORDS

225

TABLE 11.1

Mean Percentages of Correctly Explaining and Correctly Reading Words
and Difference Between Them, by Grade (Standard Deviations in Parentheses)

Grade

Word-Meaning

Knowledge

Read Vocabulary

Read-Explain

Difference

two

37% (11%)

44 (25)

8(25)

three

39(10)

63 (18)

24 (16)

four

44 (9)

70 (16)

26(18)

five

49 (8)

79(13)

30 (14)

six

53(12)

84 (8)

30 (11)

later in Grade 1 1, orally tested vocabulary in first grade was correlated r = .55
with much later reading comprehension (Cunningham 8c Stanovich, 1997).
Numerous other studies show the importance of vocabulary for oral and
reading comprehension during the elementary years (Dickinson et al,
2003; Scarborough, 2001). In fact, many more children become “compe-
tent readers” in the sense of word recognition than become “competent
readers” in the sense of understanding grade-level reading content.

In this chapter, 1 will be discussing the number of root word meanings
children need to acquire to become competent readers. I will be empha-
sizing the fact that words are learned largely in the same order — even
when different populations (e.g., advantaged, English Second Language)
and varying methods of assessing vocabulary are used. I will then discuss
the practical implications for vocabulary instruction, particularly in the
primary grades.

VOCABULARY SIZE

How large a vocabulary must a child acquire? If we consider all words —
meaning all the varied forms of words — plural, singular, past or present
tense, not to mention affixes (e.g. preterm, doable) — the number of
words children deal with is very large. However, as Anglin (1993) has
shown, the number of “derived” words using affixes, compound words,
etc. is 3 times the number of “root” words known in Grade 1 . By Grade 5,
this ratio increases to 5 times as many derived words and idioms as root
words. Nagy and Scott (2001) concur with Anglin’s estimates of number
of root words acquired.

My view is that by and large, “derived words” can be known when en-
countered or derived from context, as long as the root words and affixes are
known. Teaching affixes — e.g., pre- or -able — typically occurs in the upper

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BIEMILLER

elementary grades. (A list of commonly used affixes and an effective instruc-
tional approach are described in White, Power, Sc White, 1989). Many af-
fixes are understood at earlier ages. One illustration of this conclusion can
be found in Dale and O'Rourke’s Living Word Vocabulary, in which about
half of a sample of 100 derived words were reported acquired at the same
grade level as the root words. Many of the other derived words were ac-
quired shortly afterwards (N. Slonim, unpublished research). Thus what is
crucial is learning root word meanings.

How many root words are learned? I present here updated estimates
of the number of root word meanings learned. (Table 1 1 .2) The updated
numbers of words differ slightly from those reported in Biemiller &
Slonim (2001). 1 For practical purposes, I estimate that the average num-
ber of root word meanings is about 6,000 at the end of Grade 2, increas-

TABLE 11.2

Revised Estimates of Vocabulary*

LWV Level

total

Number of words
At LWV level

2578

2503

3499

3981

2414

2591

17570

Grade

One

1502

600

560

112

2905b

Two

1918

1186

1269

905

350

176

5855

Three

2071

1317

1495

831

621

309

6597

Four

2139

1402

1925

1338

749

357

7910

Five

2490

1834

2305

1713

961

496

9960c

Six

2544

2031

2190

1792

820

484

9861

Note a. These vocabulary estimates are based on the known number of root words at each
level of the Living Word Vocabulary, the observed percentage number of words at the level in each
form, and adjustments of a reduction of 1 5% based on overall observed redundant word mean-
ing entries, and an increase of 1 0% to 25% based on data from Anglin ( 1 993) which yields an esti-
mate of words not in the Living Word . . . but which are known by some children at that grade level .
Results are based on averages from data in studies 1 and 3 of Biemiller & Slonim, 200 1 .

Note b. This estimate is probably low. Below Grade 2, many words can apparently not be
explained.

Note c. This is probably on overestimate. The overall data suggests an increase from out
6,000 words at Grade 2 to 10,000 at the end of Grade 6.

'This is because we now have a complete count of root word meanings among the 30,000
entries known by Grade 12. Previously we had estimated the number of words at each level.

11. CHOOSING WORDS

227

ing by 1,000 a year to 10,000 at the end of Grade 6. Prior to grade 3,
children gained an average of 860 words a year. These numbers are
slightly higher than Anglin’s (1993) results, but the magnitude of yearly
gains are about the same. Nagy now agrees with these estimates (Nagy &
Scott, 2001).

Of course, many children gain words at higher or lower rates, especially
before Grade 3. Slonim’s and my study showed that in Grade 2, the average
number of root word meanings known by children in the lowest vocabu-
lary quartile was about 4,000, whereas the average for children in the
highest quartile was about 8,000. Thus by the end of Grade 2, children in
the lowest quartile had vocabularies of about the same size as average chil-
dren had in kindergarten. This gap is normally simply not filled in
later — at least during the elementary years. Instead, at best the lowest
quartile children remain about 2 years behind average children
(cross-sectional data).

Little is done in primary classrooms to address this vocabulary gap. Al-
though some words are taught — perhaps 100 or 200 word meanings per
year in primary grades — the low vocabulary children are starting kinder-
garten with smaller vocabularies, and continue to acquire new word mean-
ings at a lower rate than the average or advantaged groups of children. I
roughly estimate that lower-quartile children begin kindergarten with
1,000 fewer word meanings than average children, and continue to ac-
quire fewerwords during the primary grades so that by the end of Grade 2,
they have 2,000 fewer words. At the very least, it would seem desirable to
prevent these further decrements during the primary school years. Fur-
thermore, I and others have evidence that at least 2 word meanings a day
can be taught and retained (Bieiniller, 2003; Elley, 1989; Senechal, 1997;
Senechal et al, 1995) by children in kindergarten to Grade 2 children.
This would be sufficient to make up 1,000 word meanings in 3 years dur-
ing school days. At this rate, children would at least not fall further be-
hind! However, before adopting a vocabulary program, we need to
determine what word meanings should be taught.

TESTING VOCABULARY AND IDENTIFYING
WHEN WORDS ARE LEARNED

My conclusions are based largely on research that I and my graduate stu-
dents conducted. Basically, we read a sentence to a child and ask the child
the meaning of one word in the sentence. For example, we might say to a
child, “John got his math work done quickly. What does math mean?" Using this
method, we found evidence of the reliability of our methods and for a
well-defined sequence of word acquisition:

228

BIEMILLER

Children’s Achievement on Two Different Forms
of the Root Word Inventory.

Children who took two different forms of our Root Word Inventory (with
different words) scored very similarly on both tests. The correlation be-
tween children’s scores on these test forms was r = .88 across 126 Grade 1-5
children (Biemiller 8c Slonim, 2001).

Use of Different Context Sentences
to Assess the Same Root Word Meaning

In an unpublished study, we examined the use of different context sen-
tences for the same word. This involved 58 words from our “form B”
(Biemiller & Slonim, 2001). Procedures were the same as the Biemiller &
Slonim study 3. For this comparison, we determined average scores for
each word with each sentence in a sample of grade 1 to Grade 4 children.
Data was collected in the same laboratory school, with data taken 3 years
apart. The correlation for word means from the two forms was r = .87
(N = 58). Means for grades were reasonably similar (Table 1 1 .3).

Word Order with Normative, Advantaged, and ESL Children

The Biemiller & Slonim (2001 ) study reported results for both normative
and advantaged populations. The average correlation between word
means (from Grades 1, 2, 4, and 5) was r - .94 for the two test forms. We
conducted a subsequent unpublished study with 82 Grade 5 and 6 chil-
dren in a school where 95% do not speak English at home (drawn from
many different ethnicities). The methodology was the same as that used in
Biemiller & Slonim (2001), study 1. The correlation between average
word means for ESL Grade 5 and 6 children was correlated r = .91 with
word means for advantaged children

TABLE 11.3

Percentage Correct Means for Alternate Forms B1 and B2
by Grade (Advantaged Population)

Grade

Form B1

Form B2

One

30%

Two

Three

Four

11. CHOOSING WORDS

229

Context Sentences: Open-ended Versus Multiple-Choice Methods

In one study, I compared our standard context-sentence method (writ-
ten version) with multiple choice responses (Biemiller, 1998). Word
meanings sampled from Living Word Vocabulary levels 4, 6, and 8 were
used. Two cohorts were used in each class such that all children had both
open-ended and multiple choice tests, and all words in the study were
tested both ways. Children from an advantaged population (university
laboratory school) and from an ESL population participated in this study
in Grades 3, 5, and 6.

Individual children’s scores on multiple choice and open-ended tests
were correlated r = .8 1 with grade controlled. Test scores using multiple
choice were higher than test scores using open-ended (in which children
had to write the meaning of a word as presented in a sentence). Table
1 1 .4 shows these results. Not surprisingly, the ESL Grade 6 children had
results similar to Grade 3 advantaged children on both multiple choice
and open-ended tests. In general, on harder words for younger children
there was a larger difference between multiple-choice performance and
open-ended performance. I suspect that children who cannot provide
plausible meanings for root words will have difficulty understanding
texts with those words, at least when the word is central to the text. Thus
my best guess is that multiple-choice results may overestimate children’s
effective vocabulary.

TABLE 11.4

Mean Percentages of 4th, 6th, and 8th Grade Vocabulary Items Passed
on Multiple Choice and Open-Ended Tests by Student Background

Grade and Word Level

Grade 3 Grade 5 Grade 6

(n) 4 th 6th 8th

% words defined correctly:

ESL Population

multiple choice (19) 76 40 42

open-ended (written) (17) 44 27 11

Advantaged Population

multiple choice (21) 88 71 67

open-ended (written) (20) 76 60 44

(n) 4th 6th 8th (n) 4th 6th 8th

(20) 76 52 60 (25) 89 77 71

(20) 60 32 17 (25) 82 58 37

(19) 93 76 75 (21) 93 85 78

(21) 85 70 46 (20) 87 74 59

230

BIEMILLER

Assessing Vocabulary With Context Sentences
Versus Multiple-Choice Pictures (PPVT)

In another study, Boote and I contrasted our context-sentence method with
the standard Peabody Picture Vocabulary procedure (Biemiller & Boote,
submitted). We were especially interested in Sentence versus Picture test-
ing. Our context-sentence method tends to underestimate vocabulary be-
low Grade 2, and we wished to see if a picture vocabulary test would show
knowledge of more words.

In this study, we contrasted a short form (20 items) of Form B of our Root
Word Vocabulary with 20 pictured items from the Peabody and 20 context
sentence Peabody items. All children encountered both picture test items
and context sentence items. However, there were two cohorts of children in
each grade so some children were tested on particular words with pictures
while others were tested on the same words with context sentences. Vocabu-
lary levels measured all three ways were highly correlated. The correlation
between means for word meanings assessed with Peabody Pictures and the
same words with assessed with context sentences was r = .76, whereas corre-
lations with children’s vocabulary assessed with a short form of our Root
Word Inventory were r = .79 for picture vocabulary and .86 for context sen-
tence vocabulary. Children’s scores on all three measures were highly corre-
lated with reading comprehension (Canadian Test of Basic Skills) ranging
from r = .72 for PPVT and reading comprehension to r = .81 for Root
Word Inventory and reading comprehension.

Figure 11.2 shows the growth of word knowledge as assessed with differ-
ent methods. (We included only items between 20% and 80% on the Pea-
body Picture Vocabulary as there were many “floor” and “ceiling” items
which blurred results.) In this Figure, readers can see that in kindergarten
and Grade 1 , children scored considerably higher using Peabody pictured
items than when the same items were presented in sentences. From Grade 2
on, the difference between the two methods is considerably smaller.

Summary: Reliability of Word Order Data.

The information summarized here indicates that findings of a robust order
for word acquisition is reliable and not explicable through details of testing.
The implications of this order of word-meaning acquisition are examined
in the next section.

SEQUENCE OF WORDS ACQUIRED

Words tested in our research were sampled from 17,500 root word mean-
ings reported known by children in Grade 1 2 or lower in Dale & O’Rourke’s

1 1 . CHOOSING WORDS

231

RWIJP

SENT^P

PIC_P

Grade

FIG. 11.2. Knowledge of word meanings assessed with pictures, sentences, and
Root Word Inventory. (For this graph, only words known between 20% and 80%
on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test were used.)

Living Word Vocabulary (1981). Words can be ordered by how well they are
known on average by Grade 1 to Grade 5 children. As the order of rootword
means is highly correlated between each grade, it is possible to consider
words in the first decile ( 1 ,750 words) as those best known by most children.
Conversely, those in the tenth decile are little known (2%) by any children in
elementary school. We are then able to look at how well children know
words from each decile of words. Combining data from our two normative
samples, we have 1 1 or 1 2 words from each decile.

Achievement groups were based on overall performance on our vocabu-
lary tests: 0% to 10%, 1 1% to 20%, etc. Children from different grades could
be included in the same achievement group. Mean scores for each of these
groups of words were calculated for each ability group of children.

Evidence can be seen in Fig. 1 1.3 that words are learned in a roughly
fixed order, and that at any given level of overall word knowledge, there are
two or three deciles of root words at the 30% to 70% correct range. The
groups of children knowing only 3% to 10% and 1 1% to 20% of all words in
the test mainly knew words from the first two or three sets of words (from the

232

BIEMILLER

•o

123456789 10

GRP65

GRP55

GRP45

GRP35

GRP25

GRP 15

GRP05

Word Decile Group

FIG. 11.3. Words from different difficulty levels by children of different vocabu-
lary size.

best-known decile, the second best known decile, and so on.) The group
with knowledge of 45 percent of words overall knew over 70% of words in
the first four deciles of words. Those knowing 55% or 65% of word mean-
ings knew over 70% of the first five or six deciles of words respectively. Over-
all, these descriptive data strongly suggest that children are acquiring
vocabulary in a relatively predictable order.

The existence of a strong order in which words are acquired means that
“individual differences” are in, fact, mainly “developmental differences.” I
do not mean that differences between children must be determined by con-
stitutional maturation. However, when children have reached a vocabulary of
a given size (whether they are in Grade 2, 4, or 6), they are likely know certain
word meanings, be learning other identifiable word meanings, while still
other meanings will be unlikely to be learned at this vocabulary level.

The Fallacy of Grade-Level Vocabulary

There is a large difference in the number of words particular children in the
same grade have acquired. We tend to talk of words “learned at Grade 1” or
words “learned in kindergarten.” In fact, although children’s vocabulary

11. CHOOSING WORDS

233

follows an identifiable sequence, that sequence is defined by children’s vo-
cabulary size, rather than by grade. Table 1 1 .5 shows rough spreads of vo-
cabulary among children from different grades. For example, in Grade 2,
about 30% of children scored below the modal Grade 2 level vocabulary
range of 5,000 to 7,000 root word meanings. (This represented 30% to 40%
of our corpus of 17,500 words known by Grade 12.) Similarly, about 40% of
Grade 2 children achieved above the modal Grade 2 level.

Many of these words were also known by some children in Grades 1 or
younger or Grade 3 or older. Thus it is misleading to refer to them simply as
“Grade 2” words. We can better think of them as a group of words to be em-
phasized in the primary grades, rather than specifically in Grade 2.

Is Sequence Important?

We do not know why words are learned in approximately the same order,
whether being learned at age 7 or 10. However, inasmuch as this order
holds, it seems likely that children really need to learn words in the ob-
served order. Although some words are doubtless not crucial either to vo-
cabulary order or general understanding of our world (e.g., oar, canoe),
others are probably necessary for explaining words further up the se-

TABLE 11.5

Normative Population: Percentage of Vocabulary
Achievement Group by Grade (Combined Forms)

Grade

Estimated Vocabulary Group “

1751-

3501-

5250-

7001-

8751-

10501-

12251-

1750

3500

5250

7000

8750

10500

12250

14000

kind.

43 (100%)

35%

gr. 1

37 (100%)

22%

gr. 2

49 (100%)

gr. 3

29 (100%)

gr.4

41 (100%)

gr.5 b

24 (100%)

gr. 6

20 (100%)

Note a. Categories represent “deciles” of 1,750 root words — sampled from 17,500 total
root words reported in Dale 8c O’Rourke ( 1 98 1 ) as words passed by 67% at Grade 1 2 or at youn-
ger levels.

Note b. Data from Form A omitted because anomalously high levels of vocabulary were
seen in this Grade 5 sample.

234

BIEMILLER

quence. At any rate, it appears that if we wish to facilitate vocabulary growth,
we would be well advised to focus on words from the sequence that contrib-
ute to general vocabulary growth.

Note that to date, most studies of vocabulary instruction have not demon-
strated effects on general vocabulary. Given that children are typically ac-
quiring 800 to 1,000 word meanings per year, brief instructional inter-
ventions of 1 to 3 weeks are unlikely to impact general vocabulary assessed
with sample words. (Of course, if the sample test words were deliberately
taught, large but fallacious vocabulary gains would be recorded.) Until vo-
cabulary interventions succeeding in teachinglO to 15 word meanings per
week are sustained over at least half a school year, we should not expect to
have much impact on general vocabulary as assessed with the Peabody Pic-
ture Vocabulary Test or other standardized assessments of vocabulary.

A STRATEGY TO IDENTIFY WORDS FOR INSTRUCTION

Using Partially Known Words

The best strategy for finding words for instruction would be to introduce
words in sequence, or better, drawn from groups of words in the sequence
appropriate to children of a specifiable vocabulary size. When identifying
words needed by children at the end of the primary grades, my strategy is to
focus on words “partially known.” Words known between about 30% and
70% tend to be rapidly learned at each vocabulary size group. Thus by the
next vocabulary size group, words which were known between 30% and 70%
show an increase of 20 percentage points or more, whereas words known
better or worse, show much less change going from one vocabulary size
group to another. (This phenomenon can be seen in Table 1 1 .6.) To iden-
tify such words for instruction in the primary grades, I suggest words meet-
ing this criterion by “average” children in Grade 2. Word meanings that are
typically well-learned by Grade 2 need not be instructed during the primary
years. Word meanings that are unlikely to be well-learned by Grade 2 prob-
ably are of less value to children in the primary grades than word meanings
that are learned more rapidly at this age range. Unfortunately, these words
are too often selected for primary-grade children. For example, Foorman
et al. (in press) report that 80% of words were from “fourth grade level or
higher” in four out of six first-grade basals .

Word Significance

Our selection of words, although greatly influenced by the observed se-
quence of acquisition, should also be influenced by the practical signifi-
cance of a word. We may need to further distinguish between “important

TABLE 11.6

Normative Population: Performance of Vocabulary Achievement Groups
on Words of Varying Difficulty (Data Combined From Forms A and B)

Avg. % Estimated Vocabulary Achievement Group 11

Word

Words

0 -

1751-

3501-

5250-

7001-

8751-

10501-

12251-

Decile

Gr. 1,2,4, 5

1750

3500

5250

7000

8750

10500

12250

14000

02%

00%

100

Numbers of Children at Each Grade in Each Vocabulary Achievement Group

Grade

Total

Number of Children at Vocabulary Achievement Level

kind.

gr. 1

gr. 2

gr. 3

gr. 4

gr 5

gr 6

total

263

Note. Numbers in italics were at 30% or lower average word knowledge. Numbers bolded
were known at 70% or higher word knowledge. Estimated Vocabulary Achievement Group was
based on number of words known sampled from Dale and O’Rourke’s Living Word Vocabulary
Grade 2 to 12 words (Biemiller & Slonim, 2001),

235

236

BIEMILLER

words,” “words”, and “unimportant words” These judgments will have to be
made by teachers, curriculum builders, and state curriculum mandates.
However, those selecting words for instruction would be well-advised to
think several times about emphasizing words and concepts that are rarely
found among average children of a particular grade.

In the upper elementary grades, it is possible for children to identify
words not understood and seek their meanings. When reading, a reader
can pause to deal with unknown words. This is not possible when listening
to adults reading — especially in a group situation. Thus with older chil-
dren, it is possible to place greater responsibility on students for seeking
needed vocabulary. For example, Grade 5 and 6 children report that they
often ask others for word meanings (Biemiller, AERA 1999). However,
preliterate children rarely ask about word meanings during group dis-
course or lessons. (Beals, 1997).

Selecting Words for the Primary Years.

Of root words “known” by children w'ith 5,250 to 7,000 root words, words
from the first 2 deciles (3,500 words) were mainly known. The average child
in the 5,250-7,000 word meaning group would know about two thirds of the
words from the third decile or about 1 ,200 of the 1 ,750 words. By the fourth
and fifth deciles, individual children in the 5,250-7,000 word meaning
group know about 1,500 of the next 3,500 words. Average Grade 2 children
know relatively few of the harder words (deciles 6 and beyond). Thus, across
a list of 5,000 words in deciles 3-5, average Grade 2 children at the median
level will know a little over half. Different children will know different words
at these deciles. We cannot simply specify a list to be learned. We cannot and
should not expect every Grade 2 child to know all of these words. (By Grade
5, average children will know most of these words.) On the other hand, it
would be really nice to bring low vocabulary children in Grade 2 toward
knowledge of half of these 5,000 words.

Samples of words known, being learned, and unlikely to be learned by Grade 2
are given in Table 1 1.7. Detailed examples of root words, Living Word Vo-
cabulary definitions, and test context sentences are given in Table 1 1.8.

To get to the point of knowing half of 5,000 decile 3-5 root word mean-
ings, children whose vocabulary progress is well below average will have to be
accelerated during the primary years. At present, such children enter kinder-
garten with an estimated vocabulary of 2,000 to 2,500 root word meanings.
This compares to an estimated root vocabulary of 3,400 words at kindergar-
ten for average children. 2 In order to reach a total of even 5,000 words by the

'These estimates are larger than the vocabularies we have actually obtained with children at
this age. I believe that our context-sentence method underestimates vocabulary below Grade
2. These estimates are obtained by simply projecting vocabulary size back from Grade 2.

TABLE 11.7

Words Known at Grade 2, Being Learned at Grade 2,
and Not Usually Learned at Grade 2

Known Well

Being Learned

Unlikely to Learn

Decile 1

Decile 3

Decile 5

Decile 6

Decile 9

fish

done

blab

mammoth

bit

flood

buckle

stock

thigh

franchise

throat

boulder

peeve

because

sequence

Match

secure

shimmer

Tree (shoe)

inquisitive

cafe

right

straight

astronomy

vain

spread

react

Root

distant

popular

shot

fresh

know

man

(vote)

voice

peep

beat

period

jurisdiction

near

dodo

haul

garble

perpendicular

stab

wad

gull

duplex

empty

parcel

curious

republic

Decile 2

Decile 4

Possum

discord

stuff

cobra

transit

Decile 7

COW

subtract

Tally

knoll

victim

female

flown

thud

envelope

polo

fuss

drama

lash

Cuard (v.)

Decile 10

sliver

through

former

etch

anchor

matting

alias

question

space

litter

robust

problem

shadow

Vaseline

text

valor

loop

nation

parch

listen

ominous

destitute

drop

narrow

cognac

swing

writhe

locomotion

(baseball)

lance

kept

Decile 8

abrasive

math

dibs

reformation

justice

induct

oligarchy

vice

rotary

swoon

junction

lust

character

cartilage

matron

delinquent

whittle

Note. Words taken from Appendices B and C of Biemiller and Slonim (2001).

237

TABLE 11.8

Sample Test Sentences for Words Known at Grade 2,

Being Learned at Grade 2, and Not Usually Learned at Grade 2

Level

LWV

& Wo rd

Meaning Tested

Level

Test Sentence

Words known by

Grade 2 (70% or better)

fish

a water animal

Johnny caught a fish

flood

unusual flow of water

The flood caused a lot of damage
to the town.

throat

passage from stomach to
mouth

He felt a lump in his throat.

match

thing to light fire

Where is the box of matches?

cafe

eating place

She met him at the cafe.

loop

a circled string

He made two loops with his shoe
laces.

listen

to try to hear

You should listen to your mother.

drop

fall

The ball dropped from his hand.

swing

strike at a ball

Jamie took his second swing at
the ball.

kept

keeps/keep

He kept his old hockey trophies.

math

school subject

John got his math work done
quickly.

Words being learned

at Grade 2 (deciles 4 and 5)

cobra

snake

The cobra lived in the house.

tally

count

The teacher kept a tally of days
missed.

react

act back 2

When the cat saw the mouse, she
didn't react.

thud

dull sound

There was a thud in the next

room.

drama

plays

She enjoys watching drama
productions.

blab

tell secret

He made a promise not to blab.

vaseline

petroleum jelly

The jar of Vaseline is on the
shelf.

parcel

package

The parcel was delivered to the
office.

possum

animal

He saw a possum.

238

11. CHOOSING WORDS

239

distant

long ago

The year my mother was born
seems distant to me.

transit

Public transportation

The children took transit to
school.

man

humankind

Man has always had trouble with
the weather.

Words unlikely to be known in Grade 2 (30%; examples from deciles 6-10)

tree

rack for shoes, hats

The guests hung their hats on
the coat tree.

polo

game played on horseback

They were watching polo.

guard

a defense

Keep your guard up.

lust

strong desire

Their lust for battle was strong.

character

nature of

Difficult times in life may show
the true character of a person.

cartilage

tough tissue

She suffered from torn cartilage

bit

item of computer data

There are 8 bits in 1 byte.

franchise

chain of businesses

He bought a restaurant franchise.

sequence

connect in series

The sequence of events was
surprising.

locomotion

ability to move

His locomotion was poor.

lance

cut open

He lanced the wound.

abrasive

scratch material

That material is abrasive.

Note a. A derived word but probably learned as a basic word.

end of Grade 2, such children would, on average, have to acquire 1 , 1 00 words
a year or approximately twice the rate of words lower quartile children have
demonstrated at present (Biemiller & Slonim, 2001). It is probable that the
words they need most will fall into the 4th and 5th deciles of words.

Experience with vocabulary instruction shows that it is typical for some of
the words taught to be learned while others are simply not (Biemiller &
Boote, submitted). Again, in many cases, we are seeing an increase in the
percentage of children knowing a word — not an “all or nothing” result. In
many cases, we are teaching words that some children already knew. Some of
the rest of the children acquire the word as a result of classroom instruction.
Thus to some extent, we will need to teach more words than will be learned.

NEED FOR A WORD ACQUISITION SEQUENCE THEORY

Today I have described evidence for a robust sequence of word meaning ac-
quisition, and some implications of that sequence for classroom instruction.

240

BIEMILLER

It would be nice to have a theory explaining this order. The evidence that a
sequence of words exists is stronger than evidence explaining why the se-
quence is observed. Print word frequency is not a major factor. There is lit-
tle correlation between print word form frequency and observed word
order. This partly because many word forms have many meanings
(polysemy) so that print word frequency bears little relationship to specific
root word meaning frequency. Furthermore, prior to Grade 3, children are
really very little influenced by print word frequency, as they read little or not
at all. The frequency of oral root meanings may in fact have a major role in
word acquisition. Certainly words which are not experienced cannot be
learned. Unfortunately, we do not have good estimates of oral word fre-
quency, much less an estimate of oral word meaning frequency'.

It is also clear that word meanings that are likely to be learned relatively
early are for the most part “not abstract” (i.e., these words refer to objects
that can be seen, actions that can be carried out, and modifiers that can be
apprehended directly (e.g., color, size, sound, etc.).

My colleagues and I are currently examining some other statistical
sources — Rinsland’s (1947) count of word use in young children’s writing
and oral speech (first grade), Hart and Risley’s ( 1 999) reports of words used
early in life, and other published sources of oral word frequency. The total
number of words spoken in homes is correlated with the number of words
learned (Hart & Risley, 1995; 1999). However, in addition to the total num-
ber of words spoken in families, the number of different word meanings paral-
lels the total number of words. I suspect that the number of different words,
may be more important than the total number of words heard.

Beyond approaches based on oral or print word frequencies, we are at-
tempting to identify empirically words that fall into the “fourth and fifth
deciles” of words, by simply testing words likely to be at this level. These are
words drawn from Living Word Vocabulary levels 4 to 8, using a rating pro-
cess to eliminate some words and testing to confirm the remainder. We
hope to have 5,000 to 6,000 such words identified by 2006. We hope that
with a larger corpus of appropriate words, we may be able to identify rele-
vant aspects of these words that may allow us to construct a theory of word
meaning order.

CONCLUSIONS

In this chapter, I discussed the importance of vocabulary'. As I noted, al-
though the ability to read words in a text is prerequisite to comprehending
the text, many children can read words but fail to understand what they
read due to vocabulary limitations.

Before describing our approach to identifying words for instruction for
use in the primary grades, I reviewed a number of studies which support the

11. CHOOSING WORDS

241

conclusion that words are acquired in a predictable order. Of particular im-
portance is the finding that the order of word knowledge in different popu-
lations (normative-English speaking, advantaged, and ESL) is remarkably
similar. The correlation of words in different populations are correlated
around r = .90 or better.

Given that words are, in fact, acquired in the same order — whether one
reaches a vocabulary of a given size at age 6, 8, or 10 — the actual word
meanings learned will be similar. Thus to accelerate the rate of word acqui-
sition for low-vocabulary children, we should probably fill in the words that
have been partially learned by those with larger vocabularies. We have tar-
geted words typically known by some but not all children at a specified
grade level. We propose to find words known at 30% to 70% by median chil-
dren at a target grade. For the primary grades, we believe such a list can be
constructed based on target words at the end of Grade 2 . Once we have such
a list in hand, we can begin to design an effective vocabulary curriculum. In
my view, such a curriculum would primarily use repeated reading of narra-
tive and expository adult-read texts, combined with explanations of se-
lected word meanings and reviews of words taught. Without knowledge of
appropriate target words, it will be extremely difficult to run a program that is worth
using classroom time.

REFERENCES

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Beals, D. (1997). Sources of support for learning words in conversation: Evidence
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Biemiller, A. (1998). Oral vocabulary, word identification, and reading comprehension in
English second language and English first language elementary school children. Paper
presented at the annual conference of the Society for the Scientific Study of Read-
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Biemiller, A. ( 1 999). Estimating vocabulary growth for ESL children with and without lis-
tening comprehension instruction. Paper presented at the annual conference of the
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Biemiller, A. (2001). The relationship between vocabulary assessed with picture vocabulary
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Biemiller, A. (2003). Using stories to promote vocabulary. Paper presented at a sympo-
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Biemiller, A. & Boote, C. (submitted). An effective method for building vocabulary in pri-
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Chall, J. S., Jacobs, V. A., and Baldwin, L. E. (1990). The reading crisis: Why poor chil-
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Cunningham, A. E., & Stanovich, K. E. (1997). Early reading acquisition and its rela-
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Dale, E., & O’Rourke, J. (1981). The living word vocabulary. Chicago, 111.: World
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24, 283-304.

Chapter

In Pursuit of an Effective,
Efficient Vocabulary Curriculum
for Elementary Students

Elfrieda H. Hiebert

University of California, Berkeley

She ran and she ran, until the blizzard became a whiteout. Then she could run no
more. While Mick and the team took refuge in Galena, seven hours ahead, Akiak bur-
rowed into a snowdrift to wait out the storm.

In the morning the mound of snow came alive, and out pushed Akiak.

—Blake, 1997

This 52-word excerpt contains 3 of the 22 words that are targeted for vocab-
ulary instruction of the text Akiak (Blake, 1 997) in the teacher’s edition that
accompanies the fourth-grade textbook of a basal reading program: refuge,
burrowed, and whiteout. All three words appear only once in the story and in
the entire fourth-grade program. Not only do these words occur infre-
quently in the program but also they are unlikely to occur with any fre-
quency in typical instructional texts. According to Zeno, Ivens, Millard, and
Duwuri’s (1995) analysis of 17.25 million words of school texts, burrowed
and whiteout would be expected to appear less than once per one-mil-
lion-word corpus and refuge three times. Of the 24 words that are high-
lighted for vocabulary instruction of this text in the teacher’s edition, 1 1
would be expected to have one or fewer appearances per one-million-word
corpus of school texts from kindergarten through college. Furthermore,

243

244

HIEBERT

the number of rare words in this text is not limited to those that have been
chosen for instruction. Within this 52-word sample, there are five addi-
tional words of this type: blizzard, Galena, mound, snowdrift, and the title and
name of the protagonist of the story, Akiak.

This text illustrates the vocabulary demands that face American stu-
dents. N agy and Anderson ( 1 984) estimated the number of distinct words in
school texts used in Grades 3 through 9 to be approximately 88,500 differ-
ent words and, according to Zeno et al. (1995), an additional 70,000 differ-
ent words are part of the corpus of texts in Grades 10 through college.
Which of these words should be taught? Is the choice evident in this
teacher’s edition to address rare words the appropriate one?

This chapter proposes that vocabulary curricula need to be derived from
principles that are grounded in research and theory, if the many American
students at or below basic standards on state and national tests (Donahue,
Finnegan, Lutkus, Allen, & Campbell, 2001) are to read at acceptable lev-
els. In this chapter, such principles are identified and applied. The current
principles are not proposed as the only basis for a vocabulary curriculum.
However, the feature of this chapter that is proposed as invariant is the ap-
plication of a set of theory- and research-based principles to defining vocab-
ulary curricula, especially when the recipients of those curricula are the
students of an entire state or, in the case of textbook programs, students
across the country.

The principles that are the focus of this chapter are aimed at identifying
an “effective and efficient component” of a vocabulary curriculum for
Grades 1 through 4. “Effective” in the phrase refers to a vocabulary curricu-
lum that ensures experience for elementary students with words that are
unknown to them but that account for a significant portion of texts in
Grades 5 and beyond. “Efficient” refers to the emphasis in this curriculum
on words that have the widest possible application within texts, such as
words that are in semantic families with many members. Finally, “compo-
nent” is an important part of this goal in that this curriculum is regarded as
part of a larger vocabulary curriculum, not the entire vocabulary curricu-
lum, in Grades 1 through 4.

THE UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES OF THE CURRICULUM

An Effective Vocabulary Curriculum

The authors of the textbook program from which the excerpt that intro-
duced this chapter came have chosen to direct teachers’ instruction to
rare words and fairly common words. In addition to the 1 1 rare words

12. IN PURSUIT OF AN EFFECTIVE CURRICULUM

245

that were previously mentioned, 8 of the other 1 3 instructional words
have frequencies of 100 or more per one million word corpus. Only a
handful of the words are in the in-between range that Beck, McKeown,
and Kucan (2002) have described as part of literate, written discourse.
The words that Beck et al. have described as part of written discourse are
illustrated in the following text that comes from the first unit of a sec-
ond-grade science text: “Pollen, a powdery material, is made by one part
of the flower. Pollen is needed to make seeds form.” (Badders, Bethel,
Fu, Peck, Sumners, & Valentino, 2000).

If students do not understand words such as material, form, and part, they
may have difficulty understanding words that are likely new to second grad-
ers: pollen, pou >dery. The words material, form, and part occur with substantial
frequency in written language: 153, 384, and 694 times per million-word
corpus, respectively (Zeno et al., 1995). Young children do not necessarily
know the meanings of these three words. According to Dale and O’Rourke
(1981), the percentages of fourth graders — the youngest students in their
study — who identified the chief meanings of part and form from several
choices were 81% and 77%, respectively. The meaning of material was even
more difficult, recognized by 91% of sixth graders but less than 67% of
fourth graders. In the content areas, the meanings of such words are as-
sumed and so it is not surprising that the teacher’s edition of this science
text does not direct teachers to attend to the words material, form, and part.
An effective vocabulary curriculum is defined as one where the words that
are used most often in literary and content area texts are taught — words
such as form, material, and part.

The current interest was to establish an effective vocabulary through
fourth grade. As has frequently been recognized (Chalk Jacobs, 8c Baldwin,
1990), Grade 4 is a watershed in students’ reading. The gap between the
students who are reading well and those who are not is evident at this point.
In an analysis of the Degrees of Reading Power readability system, Zeno et
al. (1995) provided evidence of the demands on fourth graders. If
1 2th-grade vocabulary is considered as constituting 1 00% of a word corpus,
fourth-grade texts demand that students know about 84% of the vocabu-
lary. From Grades 4 through 10, the increase in the percentage of the total
vocabulary is approximately 9% and from Grades 10 to 12 the final 7%. In
all likelihood, these increases from Grades 5 through 1 0 and from Grades
10 to 12 are in the specialized vocabularies of content areas. However, to
learn this specialized vocabulary, students need to have acquired the foun-
dational vocabulary by the end of Grade 4. An effective curriculum for the
elementary years from Grades 1 through 4 should support students in ac-
quiring the foundational vocabulary that accounts for a substantial portion
of academic, written discourse.

246

HIEBERT

An Efficient Vocabulary Curriculum

When analyses of word corpora indicate that approximately 88,500 unique
words appear in the texts that students read from Grades 3 to 9 (Carroll,
Davies, & Richman, 1971; Nagy & Anderson, 1984) and 150,000 from kin-
dergarten through college (Zeno et ah, 1995), it becomes clear that all
words cannot be taught. An assumption of the current work is that students’
learning of key words from semantic families with numerous members
should comprise at least part of a vocabulary program. For example, by
learning a group of words that come from the same root — satisfy, satisfaction,
satisfactory, satisfied, unsatisfied — students had exposure to a semantic family
almost 50 times per 1 million words. In contrast, when single words are ad-
dressed — even words with 10 appearances per million such as cargo, era,
and linen — students have considerably less opportunity for exposure or the
need to use the words. By addressing words in semantic families with at least
two or more members from among the most frequently used words in writ-
ten language, a curriculum can be more efficient in developing word knowl-
edge in students.

A Component of a Vocabulary Program

Baumann et al. (chapter 9, this volume) have suggested that explicit vocab-
ulary instruction occurs in a 20:80 ratio to reading, discussing, and learning
from literature and content texts. Although the amounts of time that are de-
voted to explicit instruction of vocabulary may vary at different times in stu-
dents’ school careers, the vocabulary curriculum that the current
scholarship aims to identify is intended for only part of the vocabulary ex-
periences of elementary students. The manner in which the targeted vocab-
ulary curriculum emanates from the texts that students are reading in
reading/language arts is as yet uncertain. In that narrative texts are the al-
most exclusive fare of elementary reading/language arts programs (Duke,
2000) and that children’s literature contains a high percentage of rare
words (Hayes, Wolfer, & Wolfe, 1996), it may be difficult to attend to words
that occur frequently in content areas with these narrative texts.

The identification of an effective and efficient vocabulary is the aim of
this chapter, not addressing either the best materials or instructional proce-
dures by which this vocabulary can best be taught and learned. Although a
vocabulary that is effective and efficient needs to be developed in the ele-
mentary grades, this vocabulary should not be viewed as the be-all and
end-all of vocabulary' instruction. Words such as connect, develop, form, and
materials — although critical — form only part of a vocabulary program. Vo-
cabulary instmction is also needed of specialized vocabularies in science
(e.g., igneous, sedimentary, metaphoric) and social studies (equality, democracy.

12. IN PURSUIT OF AN EFFECTIVE CURRICULUM

247

federal). Furthermore, instruction is needed on strategies for figuring out
the rare but context-rich words of literature such as rambunctious and forlorn.

METHOD: IDENTIFYING THE WORDS OF AN EFFECTIVE,
EFFICIENT CURRICULAR COMPONENT

The process of identifying words for the proposed vocabulary curriculum
occurred in two phases. The first was to identify the overall corpus that
would be the focus of the curriculum; the second was to identify words
within this overall corpora for inclusion in a vocabulary curriculum for
Grades 1 through 4.

Choosing the Overall Corpus

Before designating particular words that might be taught, the overall
corpus that underlay the vocabulary curriculum needed to be estab-
lished. Decisions also needed to be made as to which portions of the cor-
pus would be addressed.

Selecting a Database. With an underlying assumption that an elemen-
tary curriculum should address words that occur with frequency in written
discourse, a search was conducted of studies that summarize word frequen-
cies in written discourse. Beginning with Thorndike (1921), periodic efforts
have been made to establish the words in texts read by children and adults.
The most comprehensive and recent list of the frequencies of words in writ-
ten text is that of Zeno et al. (1995). Zeno et al. established the U function of
150,000 words from a corpus of 17.25 million words that came from texts
used in educating kindergarten through college students. The U function
indicates the number of times a word appears per one million words of writ-
ten discourse. Zeno et al. (1995) grouped words by U functions of 30,000,
10,000, 3,000, 1,000, 300, 100, 30, 10, 3, 1, and less than 1. Data on the
number of words that share a U function, the proportion of total words for
which the group accounts, and the proportion of the total word corpus ac-
counted for by a single word within a group appear in Table 12.1. Inasmuch
as Zeno et al.(1995) included college texts with highly specialized vocabu-
laries in their analyses, it is not surprising to find that their list includes a
higher percentage of words with frequencies less than 1 than was the case in
the Carroll et al. ( 197 1 ) analysis that had a smaller range of grade-level text
(third through ninth grades).

Designating the Scope of a Curriculum From Grades 1 Through 4. In-
dividual texts would not be expected to have profiles such as the one in Ta-
ble 12.1. That is, a particular text at a particular grade level is unlikely to

248

HIEBERT

TABLE 12.1

Definition of Word Zones

Word

zone

Appearances in
1 million words

Words per zone
New words Cumulative

Proportion
of total of
1 -million-
word corpus

Single word’s
contribution to
total corpus (%)

30,000

.07

10,000

.21

3,000

.37

1,000

107

.48

.16

300

203

310

.57

.04

100

620

930

.67

.02

1676

2606

.74

.004

2980

5586

.79

.002

5654

11240

.82

.0005

8228

19468

.87

.0006

.99 and fewer

135473

154941

1.0

.0001

have 67% of its words with frequencies of 100 or more, 7% with words with
frequencies of 30, and so on. But what words might be expected to be prom-
inent in Grades 1 through 4?

To establish the vocabulary that accounts for a substantial portion of
fourth-grade texts, released versions of the standards-based tests of three of
the United States’ four largest states' (Texas, New York, and Florida) and
the 2002 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) were ana-
lyzed. The aim was to establish the group of words within these levels or
zones that account for 90% of the vocabulary on these tests. Ninety percent
was chosen because this level has typically been viewed to be the minimal
level required for meaningful reading (Clay, 1985). In the frustration, in-
struction, and independent levels of Betts (1946), 90% designates the lower
end of instructional level. Kuhn & Stahl (2003) have suggested that readers
who can recognize 9 out of 10 words in a text automatically should have suf-
ficient resources to use context to figure out the one unknown word in 1 0.

The results of the analysis of the passages on the fourth-grade assess-
ments are summarized in Table 1 2.2. The data indicate that the three state
tests and the NAEP have remarkably similar characteristics. An average of
92% of the unique words on all three state tests and the NAEP assessment

'Sample items or passages from the standards-based assessment of America's largest state.
California, were not available to researchers at the time this chapter was written.

12. IN PURSUIT OF AN EFFECTIVE CURRICULUM

249

TABLE 12.2

Percentages of Unique Words in Word Zones:
Three Primary States and NAEP

Word

zone

FCAT, 2003

NY State, 2003

YAKS, 2003

Average

NAEP (2002) perzone(s)

Cumulative

0-2

72.3

10.5

80.5

11.1

91.5

8.3

5.5

97.5

6.5

99.5

6.5

100

2.5

100

2.5

100

1.6

was accounted for by words with U functions of 1 0 appearances or more per
one million-word corpus. In light of this consistency across large-state as-
sessments and the NAEP, it could be argued that the most effective curricu-
lum through fourth grade consists of words with frequencies of 1 0 or more
per million words of text.

Within a curriculum that moves fourth graders to proficiency with this
corpus of words, words with particular U functions will be referred to as
word zones. A first choice in establishing word zones was to exclude the
first 107 words that have U functions of 1,000 or more from the develop-
mental vocabulary curriculum. These words are ones that serve gram-
matical functions in written discourse (e.g., the, of, and, a) and, although
first graders may be able to recognize them, most first graders (as well as
proficient adult readers) may be hard-pressed to define these words.
However, fluency in recognizing these words automatically is required
for the initiation of a vocabulary curriculum. For lack of a better label,
this zone will be identified as “0.”

Vocabulary instruction would begin with word zone 1 — those words
that appear 300 times per 1 million words. This word zone is proposed as
the target for instruction in Grade 1 . Each subsequent frequency group is
described as a word zone with the number of its corresponding grade
level. By the fourth word zone (corresponding to Grade 4), approximately
80% of the entire word corpus through college (Zeno et al., 1995), 90%
through ninth grade (Carroll et al., 1971), and approximately 92% of the
words on the standards-based tests of prominent states and on the NAEP
are accounted for.

The words with frequencies less than 1 0 occurrences per 1 million words
are not a focus of the Grades 1 through 4 developmental curriculum. The
numbers that correspond with these two zones — 5 and 6 — are not meant to

250

HIEBERT

imply a focus for a particular grade. Hopefully, specialized vocabularies
that are represented in these word zones would be taught in Grades 5 and
above. The current work aims to establish a vocabulary curriculum that will
support fourth graders in reading content area and literary texts with suffi-
cient knowledge of frequent words to leave enough cognitive resources for
figuring out unknown words.

Identifying the Target Words Within the Word Zones

The analysis of tests supported attention to particular zones of words. The
next step was to establish which words within these zones should be the fo-
cus at a grade level. Two criteria were applied in establishing the appropri-
ateness of words for instruction: (a) their semantic connections and (b) their
known-ness to students at particular grade levels.

Semantic Families. The 5,586 words from zones 1 through 4 were ana-
lyzed for semantic families. To establish these semantic families, Nagy and
Anderson’s (1984) categorization scheme was used. In their investigation of
the number of distinct words in printed English using the Carroll et al.
(1971) word list, Nagy and Anderson ( 1 984) developed a set of categories of
semantic relatedness. These categories were formed to answer the question,
“Assuming that a child knew the meaning of the immediate ancestor, but
not the meaning of the target word, to what extent would the child be able to
determine the meaning of the target word when encountering it in context
while reading?” (Nagy 8c Anderson, 1984, p. 310).

Target words and their immediate ancestors from the 5,586 words are
given in Table 12.3 for each of Nagy and Anderson’s six categories. In their
first category, a target word’s meaning can be established immediately, if the
ancestor of the family is known. The sixth and final category on Nagy and An-
derson’s (1984) semantic relatedness scale is described as having “no discern-
ible semantic connection; the meaning of the immediate answer is of no use
in learning or remembering the meaning of the target word” (p. 311). They
classify the first three categories as semantically transparent and the last
three as semantically opaque. The former refers to relationships where
meaning of an unknown target word can be accurately ascertained based on
knowing a related word, whereas the latter refers to relationships where the
meaning of the unknown word is sufficiently different that the meaning of a
known word is not useful or even distracts from the appropriate meaning.
The current aim in identifying a first- through fourth-grade curriculum was
to stay in the “semantically transparent” set of categories (Nagy and Ander-
son’s first three) rather than semantically opaque (their last three).

The first clustering of words into semantic families was on the basis of in-
flected endings. Whereas the focus of the semantic relatedness categories is

12. IN PURSUIT OF AN EFFECTIVE CURRICULUM

251

TABLE 12.3

Examples of Target Word and Immediate Ancestor
for Six Categories of Semantic Relatedness 1

Target Word

Immediate Ancestor

automatically

automatic

achievement

achieve

Sunshine, sunlight, sunset

sun

shiny

shine

knowledge

know

everyday

every

password

pass

visualize

visual

apartment

apart

artificial

artifice

prefix

fix

peppermint

pepper

'These categories were first identified by Nagy and Anderson (1984).

on suffixation, prefixation, and compounds of root words, inflected end-
ings account for a substantial number of the members of semantic families.
To establish semantic relatedness among words with suffixes, prefixes, and
compounds of root words, meanings were confirmed with the Merriam-
Webster Online Dictionary (2002). Although the aim was to stay with se-
mantic families where connections across members were semantically
transparent, the connections across words can become complex. The diffi-
culties are evident in Nagy and Anderson’s (1984) acknowledgement that
“exact agreement on the 6-point scale was not achieved” (p. 312). Even in
sorting between the two general categories of transparent and opaque,
Nagy and Anderson (1984) reported an agreement level of 76.6%. Whereas
each of the members of a semantic family is tied directly to the root word,
connections between pairs of words in families can be less transparent.
Take, for example, words related to vision. Nagy and Anderson give visual
(ancestor) and visualize (target word) as illustrating semantic category
4 — where the meaning of the target item includes semantic features that are
not inferable from the meaning of the immediate ancestor without substan-
tial help from the context. Although visualize is not among the 5,586 words,
visual , vision, visible, and invisible are. All of these words are defined in rela-
tion to vision by Merriam-Webster (2002). Consequently, all of these words

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HIEBERT

are clustered into the same semantic family, even though the connection
between visual and visible is not as transparent as that, for example, between
visual and vision or between vision and visible.

A semantic family was assigned to the zone in which the first member of
the family appeared. For example, continued appears in zone 2, whereas con-
tinue appears in zone 3. The latter is the ancestor of the former. However, the
semantic family with these words (and others) was assigned to zone 2.

Word Known-ness. The vocabulary curricula of basal reading pro-
grams have been criticized as addressing known words (Beck et al., 2002).
To ensure that the current curriculum was the most effective one possible, a
measure was needed to establish “known-ness” of words. A chapter on de-
fining a vocabulary curriculum should not be proposing the addition of new
words to the lexicon. However, the various words that have been proposed
to describe the construct of children’s grasp of a word’s meaning (e.g., fa-
miliarity, knowledge, understanding) do not convey the emphasis on words
that students already understand. Consequently, the word knoum-ness is
used to describe students’ knowledge of word meanings.

To establish the appropriate range of “word known-ness,” the key words
from semantic families were vetted through two procedures: (a) eliminating
words that are known by the overwhelming majority of a grade cohort and
(b) moving words from a zone where they may be too difficult for grade-
level students to an appropriate zone.

The Dale and O’Rourke (1981) Living Word Vocabulary (LWV) and
Biemiller and Slocum’s (2001) adaptations of it were used as resources for
both procedures. The methods whereby the LWV was developed and the
time frame within which it was validated make the LWV a less-than-ideal re-
source for use with students in the early part of the 2 1 st century. At the pres-
ent time, however, the LWV is the only comprehensive, existing database
on students’ familiarity with word meanings. It consists of 44,000 word
meanings that have been assigned to grade levels based on at least 67% of a
grade-level cohort correctly identifying a word’s meaning from three
choices. Dale and O’Rourke (1981) gathered information on students from
grades 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and young adults. Words that were recognized by
more than 80% of an age cohort were given to students at the next lower
grade level. As fourth graders were the youngest students tested, the words
in the sample — 11% — that were known to this group were assigned a
Level/Grade 4 rating. Biemiller and Slocum (2001) identified these words
as a Level 2. Biemiller and Slocum (2001) examined a small percentage of
words from Level 2 with students ranging from kindergarten through sixth
grade. Of the 20 Level-2 words that were tested, 80% or more of second
graders knew half of the words. Even 80% of the first-grade cohort knew a
quarter of the Level 2 words.

12. IN PURSUIT OF AN EFFECTIVE CURRICULUM

253

In addition to procedures used to establish the LWV, issues of cultural
specificity of words for particular age cohorts and economic and linguistic
groups leave numerous questions about the LWV. A word that was known by
69% of sixth graders according to Dale and O’Rourke (1981 ) — shot, as in an
injection — was known by 83% of first graders and 94% of second graders in
the Biemiller and Slocum (2001) sample. Other words may be specific to
time periods, such as these words on the Dale-Chall (Chall & Dale, 1995)
list: boxcar and tiddlywinks. Both words achieve Biemiller and Slocum’s
(200 1 ) Level 2 status by virtue of being known by 80% of fourth graders that
were sampled by Dale and O’Rourke (1981) over the two decades that pre-
ceded its initial publication in 1976.

Because of shortcomings in the LWV system, an additional resource was
used for decisions of inclusion or exclusion on grade-level lists in the pres-
ent study: The Ginn Word Book for Teachers (GWBT; Johnson & Moe with
Baumann, 1983). To develop a listing of 9,000 words in the GWBT, John-
son et al. (1983) developed a composite rating of a word based on (a) word
frequency in middle-grade texts (based on the Carroll et al. [1971] list), (b)
word frequency in popular trade books for primary grades, and (c) words in
the speaking vocabularies of first-grade students. These composite ratings
were used to rank words and from these rankings, words were assigned to
grade-level groups. For example, whereas the word form in zone 1 has a
LWV rating of 77% for fourth graders, the GWBT places this word in the
first half of Grade 1 . As the GWBT is based on word frequencies through
ninth grade (Carroll et al., 1971), primary-level trade books, and speaking
vocabularies of first graders, this verification indicates that it is a word that
has some applicability to first graders.

The percentages on the LWV were assigned numbers on a scale with the
same number of points as the GW'BT: 23. Category 1 encompassed ratings
of 96% and higher at fourth-grade level on the LWV, and each subsequent
point represented a span of five percentage points. The final point of 23
represented words that had ratings of 94 or lower at Grade 1 0 on the LWV.

A summary score was established by dividing the sum of the LWV and
GWBT scores. The ranges for the word zones/grade levels were as follows:
(a): Zone 0/Primer: 1-3; (b) Zone One/Grade 1 : 4-6; (c) Zone Two/Grade 2:
7-11; (d) Zone Three/Grade 3: 12-14; and (e) Zone Four/Grade 4: 15-17.
For example, the word form had a sum of 4.5 (5 for the 77% Grade 4 LWV
rating plus the 4 rating in the GWBT). This meant that the word remained
in zone 1 , where the first member of the family appeared. Words with scores
that were more than one level below a grade-level range (e.g., 5 for words in
zone/grade 2) were eliminated, while words with ratings that were more
than one level above a grade-level range (i.e., 13 for zone/grade two) were
moved to the next word zone. The numbers of words within a particular
zone/grade, those that were eliminated, and those that were moved to dif-

254

HIEBERT

ferent word zones appear in Table 12.4. Table 12.5 provides examples of
words from each of the four target word zones.

RESULTS: DESCRIBING THE VOCABULARY CURRICULUM

The summary of numbers of words in Table 12.4 and the illustrated words
in Table 12.5 support several observations about the proposed vocabu-
lary. The first observation pertains to the number of semantic families. Of
the 5,586 words that are likely to appear 10 or more times per one-mil-
lion-word corpus, approximately 10% represent a cluster of semantic re-
latedness within the corpus and are sufficiently unknown to a critical
portion of an age cohort to merit instruction. Approximately 550 words
taught over the course of four grades would seem to be a doable task, in
light of previous projects (e.g., Baumann, Edwards, Boland, Olejnik, &
Kame’enui, 2003; Beck, McKeown, & McCaslin, 1983). As the distribution
indicates in Table 12.4, the numbers of words that need to be taught differ
for different grade-level groups. At Grades 1 and 2, when children are de-
veloping the fundamental fluency that serves as the foundation for their
reading, the number of words that require direct, varied, and rich instruc-
tion is substantially lower than in Grades 3 and 4. In Grades 3 and 4, the
chief reading task changes from fluency building to vocabulary building.
At this point, the number of words that require direct, varied, and rich in-
struction increases substantially.

A second observation is that each of these semantic groups accounts for,
on average, 3 words in the 5,586 most-frequent words in kindergarten
through college texts. That is, instruction in the 538 words of this desig-
nated vocabulary curriculum will address approximately 30% of the 5,586

TABLE 12.4

Curriculum Focus Words and Sources

Word zone
& grade

Total

words

Semantic

Semantic families with
families 2+ members

Unknown

semantic

families

Carryover

Zone-focus

words

203

160

124

8 to Zone 2;
1 to Zone 3

620

231

221

1 8 to Zone 3

1676

840

612

250

20 to Zone 2;
24 to Zone 4

225

2980

1233

332

163

187

12. IN PURSUIT OF AN EFFECTIVE CURRICULUM

255

TABLE 12.5

Illustrations of Words Within the Four Target Zones/Grades

Word Zone/Grade

Words within Zone/Grade

body

important

form

believe

example

nature

scientists

behavior

considered

section

defense

express

sample

style

managed

exposed

minor

tense

associated

merchandise

most-frequent words. Furthermore, these are words that have meanings
that at least a core group of students are likely not to know.

Third, many of the words have a high level of utility across the texts of
several content areas. As part of their database, Zeno et al. (1995) provided
a dispersion index that indicates the level to which a word appears across
texts from different content areas. Altogether, texts from nine content ar-
eas were sampled in their corpus — language arts and literature, social sci-
ence, science and math, fine arts, home economics and related fields, trade
and technical fields, health and safety, business, and popular fiction and
nonfiction. A word that appears in numerous content areas, such as fact, has
a dispersion index of .99. Because of Zeno et al.’s (1995) sampling proce-
dure (a relatively small sample of texts from numerous grade levels across
numerous content areas), those words that appeared frequently would be

256

HIEBERT

expected to have high dispersion indexes. This pattern was confirmed.
Only a few words with frequencies of 10 or more per one-million-word cor-
pus had lower dispersion indexes. These words are important but specific
to a particular content area such as acid , a zone 3 word, with a dispersion in-
dex of .65 and government, a zone 1 word, with a dispersion index of .71 . On
average, however, words with appearances of 10 or more per one-mil-
lion-word corpus had dispersion indexes of .88. That is, the words in this
curriculum have high utility across content areas.

This utility across content areas also means that the majority of words
have a range of meanings, often specific to particular content areas. For ex-
ample, the word style in zone 3 is fairly typical of the group. It has 1 2 mean-
ings, including ones that are part of literary language (distinction; manner;
current fashion) and content areas (the part of a carpel between the stigma
and ovary in botany; a projection on some insects in zoology; and a particu-
lar manner of dealing with spelling, punctuation in printing). Few of these
meanings can be learned by a simple association with a known word. To un-
derstand these various meanings will not be a simple task.

Additional analyses are being conducted on the characteristics of
these words such as parts of speech and imagery value. One characteris-
tic of the words as a group that seems highly promising is the number of
words that have a shared cognate with Spanish. Within a group of 50
words from the curricular list that were randomly selected, non-Span-
ish-speaking adults were asked to write the English equivalent of the
word when given exposure to the Spanish word for a second (e.g.,
aceptar/accept, horizonte /horizon). They identified the corresponding Eng-
lish word for 53% of the corpus.

CAUTIONS, IMPLICATIONS, AND CONCLUSIONS

The proposed curriculum requires substantial validation before it can be
established that it is, indeed, effective and efficient in increasing the
reading comprehension of students in the middle grades. Caveats re-
lated to the principles that were chosen for this curriculum need to be ad-
dressed. But even with these caveats, the use of principles — the specific
ones used in this project as well as others — should be the source of con-
siderable discussion among policymakers and researchers. Further-
more, while the particular curriculum described in this chapter should
be one of many, a set of guidelines can be useful to the many classroom
teachers across the country who are aware that their students require vo-
cabulary guidance that is substantially more disciplined than that which
is currently available.

12. IN PURSUIT OF AN EFFECTIVE CURRICULUM

257

Cautions

A primary caution about the methodology that was used in establishing the
effective, efficient vocabulary curriculum presented in this chapter was the
criteria for known-ness. In particular, the systems available for establishing
known-ness of words do not reflect the norms of early elementary students
at the beginning of the 21st century. Both the Dale and O’Rourke (1981)
and the Johnson et al. (1983) systems were developed with students and/or
texts in the decades prior to an extensive immigration of speakers of lan-
guages other than English to American schools during the 1980s and
1990s. While the Dale and O’Rourke system has been examined with Eng-
lish-language learners to some degree (Biemiller & Slocum, 2001), numer-
ous questions remain about the generalizability of this list to 21st-century
students, especially those who speak Spanish as a native language. For ex-
ample, native Spanish speakers may grasp the meanings of words where the
common word in Spanish has a transparent Latin cognate for the English
word more quickly than native English speakers.

Implications for Scholars

In choosing vocabulary for the elementary curriculum, a fundamental issue
is the role of text in guiding the selection of vocabulary. The text excerpt
that introduced this chapter is typical of literature where the number of rare
words is high (Hayes et al., 1996). Literary writers, unlike those who write
even the informational texts that are sold on the trade rather than textbook
market (Duke & Kays, 1998), use many words a single time. When writers of
narrative want to communicate a trait or an action of a character, they select
words that are specific. This use of words by narrative writers is illustrated in
the introductory excerpt from Akiak (Blake, 1997) where Akiak burrows
into the snowdrift and pushes out of a mound of snow. The same nouns and
verbs are not repeated as the writer selects words to communicate nuances
of behavior or character traits.

Because an overwhelming portion of the texts of reading instruction
consists of narrative literature from trade books (Duke, 2000; Hoffman,
Roser, Patterson, Salas, & Pennington, 200 1 ), the number of unique per to-
tal words is high in current textbook programs (Foorman, Francis,
Davidson, Harm, & Griffin, 2004). As is typical of narrative literature, many
of the unique words in the anthologies of first-grade basal programs appear
a single time (Foorman et al., 2004).

As the instruction of vocabulary has typically occurred as part of read-
ing lessons and in connection with the reading textbooks, these character-
istics of school texts have consequences for the vocabularies students are

258

HIEBERT

acquiring. This observation does not mean that a vocabulary curriculum
should be disconnected from the texts of instructional lessons. The first
criterion for the words in the present effective and efficient vocabulary
curriculum was their frequency in text. In that the “dispersion” index of
the words was used to confirm the choice of words for the vocabulary cur-
riculum, few words are used in a single content area. This frequency in lit-
erate, written discourse is also evident in the literature used in the basal
reading programs. When an analysis was done of the texts of the first unit
of a fourth-grade basal program, which included Akiak, the 5,538 words
that were the basis for this curriculum accounted for 82% of the unique
words. Although this percentage was lower than that of the texts on the
state and national standards-based assessments, the most frequent words
of a literate, written word corpus also account for a significant percentage
of words in literature. The difficulty of attending to the multiple meanings
and derivatives of high-frequency words such as associated and tense in liter-
ature is illustrated by the examples from Akiak. The high-frequency words
are present, but the percentage of rare words in children’s literature is
higher than is typical of fourth-grade assessments. Rather than needing to
be able to attend to 1 unknown word per 100, the literature — at least of
this widely used basal program (Cooper et al., 2003) — requires students to
be able to figure out 2 unknown words per 100.

The question is whether the texts of instruction, especially the narrative
texts that are now common to basal reading programs, should drive the
“explicit” vocabulary curriculum. An alternative is suggested in the report
of the National Reading Panel (2000): “A large portion of vocabulary items
should be derived from content learning materials” (pp. 4-25). Not only
does vocabulary instruction with content text prepare students for the texts
that can be challenging for many students (Chall et al., 1990) but, as Duke
and Kays (1998) have shown, vocabulary representing critical concepts is
repeated in informational text. This repetition is evident in the writing of
Gail Gibbons, a well-known author of informational trade books. When the
word cultivated is first introduced in The Berry Book (Gibbons, 2002), Gib-
bons repeats it several times: “Some berries are grown in gardens. They are
called cultivated berries. Cultivated berries also are grown in nurseries and
on farms. Cultivated berries are harvested in dilferent ways (pp. 13-14).

Implications for Policymakers and Publishers

The proposed curriculum requires substantial validation with students be-
fore it can have widespread dissemination. However, policymakers and
publishers can apply this work’s aim of using a principled approach to select
vocabulary for instruction. The principles of effectiveness and efficacy have
a strong foundation in existing theory 7 and research. Other principles may

12. IN PURSUIT OF AN EFFECTIVE CURRICULUM

259

well be applied. One such construct that has a substantial foundation in the-
ory and research is semantic connections (Marzano & Marzano, 1988).
Marzano and Marzano (1988) organized 7,230 words that are commonly
found in elementary school texts. They grouped these words into 61
superclusters of meaning — tied together by a common theme such as trans-
portation or location/direction.

A thematic construct such as that suggested by the Marzano and
Marzano (1988) superclusters is presumably what underlies the selection
of literature — and subsequently vocabulary — in the textbook program
from which the illustration that introduced the chapter came (Cooper et
al., 2003). The story Akiak (Blake, 1997) is in a theme entitled “Journeys”
with three other texts: Grandfather’s Journey (Say, 1993), Finding the Ti-
tanic (Ballard, 1993), and By the Shores of Silver Lake (Wilder, 1939). At-
tempts to organize the 85 words that are highlighted for vocabulary
attention in the teacher’s manual did not result in discernible semantic
categories, either from the Marzano and Marzano (1988) clusters or
other groupings. However, when the 1,009 unique words in this unit
were reexamined and the 246 words from zones 3 and 4 in the proposed
vocabulary (words with probable appearances of 10 and 30 within a
one-million-word corpus) became the focus, 35 words were readily
sorted into five semantic categories pertaining to journeys. The results
of this activity appear in Table 12.6. In examining the categories and
words in Table 12.6, the usefulness and potential power of such a scheme
for student learning are evident.

TABLE 12.6

Vocabulary From a Fourth-Grade Basal Reading Unit:
Clustered According to Semantic Categories

Subcategory of Journeys Vocabulary Words

Feelings people might have on Amazed, anxious, confused, alert, excited,
journeys frightened, brave, miserable, satisfied,

dangerous

Actions that might be part of Explored, escaped, disappeared, struggling,

journeys rescued, arrived, greet, arrived, fidget

Places that people might travel Valley, trail, deserts, harbor, creek, hotel
over/see on journeys

Descriptions of perilous places that Rugged, towering, steep, descent, slopes
might be encountered on journeys

People who might be encountered Conductor, passengers, survivors, crew, pilot
on journeys

260

HIEBERT

This scheme illustrates that many principles could drive a vocabulary
curriculum. The critical perspective, however, is that a vocabulary curricu-
lum has an apparent set of underlying principles based on theory and em-
pirical validation. The principles from scholarship that publishers have
used to specify vocabulary in their programs need to be unveiled and exam-
ined by users in states and districts. In the same vein, the standards of states
that give publishers guidance in choosing vocabulary need to be revisited.
Do state standards provide teachers and publishers sufficient guidance to
implement a vocabulary curriculum that is effective and efficient? At the
current time, the vocabulary standards of most states and published read-
ing programs are vague and nebulous. If students are to read with expertise
and interest in the middle grades and beyond, vocabulary curricula must be
clear and defined according to a set of principles drawn from scholarship.

Implications for Teachers

Although the responsibility for identifying a core vocabulary should not be
placed on the already heavily laden shoulders of classroom teachers, many
classroom teachers will recognize the need and usefulness of an effective
and efficient vocabulary curriculum. For those who cannot wait until state
agencies and committees have identified principles and applied them to a
vocabulary curriculum, three questions can guide the amount of time that
teachers spend on particular vocabulary. The first question a teacher can
ask in examining the critical vocabulary in a text is: Which unknown words
might students know by association with known words? Graves (1984) hy-
pothesized that there are many words for which students already have a
concept. They simply do not have this particular label for the word. A sim-
ple association can be made to the new vocabulary when the known label is
elicited. For example, two of the three words that are highlighted for vocab-
ulary instruction from the text excerpt that introduced this chapter — bur-
rowed and whiteout — can be treated in this manner. Students are familiar
with the word dig, which defines burrowed in this context, while whiteout is
easily defined in relation to a snowstorm. The word refuge, by contrast,
could merit a more extended discussion. In the context of this text, refuge is
used as a protected spot. The word is used in different content areas with
sufficiently distinct meanings that this word and the derivative, refugees,
could support the development of a rich vocabulary among students.

A second question is: Which words in the text have derivatives that are
frequent in students’ reading and writing? In considering the text that in-
troduced this chapter, consider this sentence: “Six hours after Mick and the
team had left, Akiak padded softly, cautiously, into the checkpoint.” The
word that is singled out for vocabulary' instruction in this sentence is check-
point, a word that occurs infrequently and can be identified through associa-

12. IN PURSUIT OF AN EFFECTIVE CURRICULUM

261

tion with the roots in this compound word. The word cautiously, on the other
hand, is part of a family that has members that can be expected to appear
frequently and in a range of subject areas: cautious, caution (-s, -ed, -ing), and
cautionary. Furthermore, the reason for Akiak’s cautionary approach merits
discussion as part of the story.

Third, with which words might students need support because of the
multiple meanings of the word? Again, drawing from the text Akiak, con-
sider the following two sentences: “Screaming winds threw bitter cold at the
team as they fought their way along the coast.” and ‘“That old dog will never
make it!’ he laughed at Akiak across the biting wind.” Neither bitter nor bit-
ing is targeted for vocabulary attention in the teacher’s edition. Both words,
however, are within zone 4 families (words that appear with frequencies of
10 to 29 times per one-million-word corpus). These two words are not
members of the same semantic family, at least when the criterion is seman-
tic transparency. However, they do have the same historical root and both
have multiple meanings and are used across subject areas (their dispersion
indices are .8). Both words deserve attention in this context because the au-
thor’s use differs from their most common definitions. Furthermore, both
words are used in numerous metaphors. Not only is bitter used to describe
the attitude of characters in narratives but things are described as bitter-sad
and someone waits until the bitter end. Similarly, several phrases use the word
bite, as in bite the bullet and bite off more than can be chewed. Selecting vocabulary
based on answers to these three questions can go a long way to developing a
broad and also deep vocabulary.

Conclusions

Among the most pressing questions that empirical investigations of the
proposed curriculum need to address is the nature of instruction that best
supports learning of these words. The National Reading Panel (2000) sum-
marized the need for both direct instruction and exposure to many, varied
texts. The latter has been viewed as the means for incidental learning of vo-
cabulary (Anderson, Fielding, & Wilson, 1988). Anderson et al. (1988) re-
ported that the amount of vocabulary that fourth- and fifth-graders
acquired through after-school reading of text was reflected in comprehen-
sion scores on school tests. The nature of fluency with complex and abstract
words as a result of differing amounts of school reading has not been con-
sidered. Although after-school learning cannot be manipulated in school
investigations, the amount of in-school reading can be. If the goal of a mil-
lion words of reading (the amount of out-of-school reading done by Ander-
son et al.’s [1988] most prolific readers) is applied to school reading from
Grades 1 through 4, students would have had exposure to the words on the
target curriculum a minimum of 20 times each. This minimum number re-

262

HIEBERT

fleets the manner in which words in the curriculum were chosen: (a) only
words with frequencies of 10 or more per million were addressed (through
zone 4) and (b) only semantic families with two or more members were in-
cluded. In that available research indicates that middle graders need to see
words in texts from six to 12 times to use them knowledgeably, students will
have had sufficient exposure to these words — many of which may require
even more exposure because of their abstractness. How differing amounts
of extended reading and of direct instruction affect students’ understand-
ing of the complex vocabulary that has been identified here should be a fo-
cus of future study. Yet, although many questions remain about this
particular curriculum, there can be little question that systematic attention
is needed to vocabulary curricula on state and national levels. If the trajecto-
ries of the substantial portion of American students who are not now read-
ing at designated levels are to change, vocabulary instruction will need to be
effective and efficient.

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Author Index

Adams, M. J., 2, 20, 53, 65 , 96, 113 , 155,
173

Afflerbach, 2 , 20
Allington, R. L., 59, 65
Allison, D. T„ 159, 173
Anderson, R. C., 18, 20 , 27, 30, 31, 33,
34, 42 , 48, 49, 50, 58, 59, 65,
70, 76, 80,57, 180,203, 261,
262

Anglin, J. M„ 72, 78 , 87 , 111 , 113 , 225,
226,227 ,241
Askov, E. N., 181,203
August, D., 1 19, 135
Austin, M. C., 158, 173

Badders, W„ 245, 262
Baines, L., 52, 65
Baker, L„ 53, 65, 75, 87, 102, 113
Baker, S„ 156, 173
Ballard, R. D., 259, 262
Banks, J. A., 216, 222
Baumann, J. F„ 39, 42 , 72, 87 , 179, 181,
182, 195, 201,203, 254, 262
Beals, D„ 236 ,241
Bear, D. R„ 184, 203
Beck, I. L„ 7, 17, 20, 29, 30, 31, 39, 42 ,
46, 49, 53, 64, 65 , 70, 74, 75,
87 , 99, 101, 102, 113 , 123, 124,

125, 135 , 141, 142, 151 , 180,
201,203, 245, 251, 254, 262
Betts, E„ 76, 87 , 248, 262
Biemiller, A., 18, 20, 29, 42 , 46, 65 , 77,
87 , 99, 107, 113 , 116, 135 , 159,
173 , 223, 224, 226, 227, 228,
229, 230, 235, 236, 237, 239,
241 , 252, 253, 257, 262
Blachowicz, C. L. Z., 30, 42 , 142, 151 ,
180, 184, 202 , 203,204
Blake, R.J., 243, 257, 259, 262
Blum-Kulka, S„ 17, 21
Bode, J., 144, 151
Boehm, R. G., 191, 194,203
Brabham, E. G., 160, 173
Bravo, M., 16,27, 145, 151
Brett, A., 117, 135 , 159, 174
Bryant, D. M., 156, 174
Buikema, J . L„ 181, 184,203
Burningham, J., 123, 125, 135

Cain, K„ 76, 87

Calderon, M„ 120, 123, 131, 135
Calfee, R. C„ 140, 151
Campbell, J. R„ 137, 151
Carlisle, J. F„ 72, 87 , 140, 144, 151
Carlo, M., 117, 123, 135 , 144, 147, 150,
151

Carney, J.J., 117, 135
Carroll, J. B„ 4, 11, 21 , 246, 247, 249.
250, 253, 262

265

266

AUTHOR INDEX

Carver, R. P., 18 ,21
Chall, J. S„ 78, 81, 87 , 223, 242 , 245,
253, 258, 262
Champion, A. H., 72, 87
Chomsky, C., 100, 113
Christie, A., 217, 222
Clark, E., 70, 71, 87
Clay, M. M„ 248, 262
Clements, D. H„ 10, 21
Cobuild Staff, 105, 113
Conger, R. D., 155, 174
Cooper, J. D„ 258, 259, 262
Copeland, K. A., 156, 174
Cornell, E. H„ 159, 174
Corson, D., 51, 65
Craig, J. C„ 81, 87
Crain-Thoreson, C., 57, 65
Cummins, J., 78, 87
Cunningham, A. E., 10, 21 , 48, 51, 57,

58, 60,61,62 , 65 , 66 , 116, 135 ,
156 , 174 , 180, 203 , 225 ,242
Curtis, C. P.,201,205

Dale, E„ 2, 21 , 71, 88 , 184, 204 , 230,

233 , 242 , 245, 251, 252, 253,
257, 265

Daneman, M., 47, 66
Daniels, H„ 185, 198, 204
Daniels, M„ 117, 135
D’Anna, C. A., 97, 113
Davidson, J., 10,2i, 117, 135
Davis, F. B„ 1, 6, 21
Diakidoy, I., 75, 76, 80, 81, 83, 84, 88
Dickinson, D. K., 36, 37, 43 , 57, 66 , 99,
113 , 117, 135 , 157, 158, 159,
174 , 225,242

Donahue, P. L„ 13, 14, 21 , 244, 263

Donovan, C., 81, 88

Donovan, J.J., 13,27

Drevno, G. E., 1 17, 135

Dromi, E„ 161, 174

Duke, N. K„ 69, 81, 82, 88 , 185, 186,

190, 195,204, 246, 257, 258,
263

Duncan, G.J., 155, 174
Dunn, L„ 156, 157, 158, 174
Dunn, L. M„ 170, 174
Durkin, D. D„ 184, 202, 204
Durso, F., 71, 88

Edwards, A., 214, 222

Edwards, E. C„ 29, 43 , 72, 88 , 185, 204

Ehri, L„ 36, 45

Filey, W. B., 56, 66, 69, 73, 75, 77, 88 ,
160, 174 , 227, 242
Ewers, C. A., 10, 21 , 159, 7 74

Farr, R. C., 2, 27
Flood, J., 2, 27
Foil, C. R„ 8, 27

Foorman, B. R„ 30, 45, 234, 242 , 257,
263

Fowler, A., 36, 45

Frank, M. S., 196, 197, 198, 204

Freedman, R., 144, 151

Freeman, E. B„ 81 , 88

Fry, E. B„ 96, 775

Fukkink, R. G„ 39, 45, 140, 152 , 181,
204

Garcia, G. E„ 138, 139, 140, 152

Gates, A. I., 13, 27

Gathercole, S., 36, 45

George, J. C., 195, 198, 204

Gibbons, G., 258, 263

Golinkoff, R. M„ 161, 7 74

Gordon, J„ 75, 78, 88

Gosami, U., 36, 45

Grabe, W,, 1 16, 135

Graves, M. F„ 9, 12, 27, 30, 40, 41, 45,

79, 88 , 101, 775, 142, 152 , 155,

174 , 181, 184, 189, 201, 202,
204 , 260, 263

Greenaway, T., 82, 88

Hafner, L. E„ 181,204
Hall, V. C., 63, 66
Hamilton, V., 201,204
Hansen, J., 201 ,204
Hargrave, A. C., 57, 66
Harmon, J., 82, 88

Hart, B., 6, 16, 27, 64, 66, 69, 77, 88 , 98,
99, 775, 139, 152 , 155, 156,

175 , 240, 242

AUTHOR INDEX

267

Hayes, D. P„ 1, 5, 22, 50, 51, 66, 98, 113 ,
246, 257, 263
Haynes, M. C., 100, 113
Hazenberg, S., 223, 242
Heath, S. B„ 53, 66
Heise, B, L„ 10,22
Helburn, S. W„ 156, 175
Hesse, K., 199, 204
Hiebert, E, H„ 5, 22, 78, 88
Hirsh, E. D„ 69, 86, 88
Hoban, R„ 17,22
Hoffman, J., 257, 263
Holt, S. B.', 18, 22

Houghton Mifflin Science, 84, 85, 88

Howes, C., 157, 175

Hu, M., 76, 83, 88

Huckin, T„ 83, 89

Hughes, M„ 158, 175

Hutcheson, G. D., 5, 22

Jacob, J. S., 158, 175
Jenkins, J. R., 77, 89 , 159, 175 , 181, 204
Jimenez, R. T., 16, 22
Johnson, D. D„ 30, 43 , 181, 184, 202,
204 , 253, 257, 263
Juel, C., 18, 22, 64, 66
Justice, L., 160, 175

Kamil, M„ 10, 22
Keats, E. J., 45, 66
Klinger, J. K„ 39, 43
Kohnke, J. M„ 210, 212,222
Konopak, B. C„ 75, 81, 84, 89
Kontos, S„ 158, 175

Kuhn, M. R„ 6, 22, 39, 43 , 140, 152 , 248,
263

Landau, S. I., 70, 89
Lasky, K„ 144, 152
Laufer, B„ 73, 74, 89
Leinhardt, G., 100, 113
Leung, C. B„ 10, 22, 117 ,135
Lewellen, M. J., 63, 66
Lickteig, M.J., 158, 175
Liu, J., 161, 175
Lively, T„ 141, 145, 152

Lobel, A., 141, 152
London, J., 8, 22
Lonigan, C.J., 156, 175
Lukens, R., 81, 82, 89

Marchalek, B., 52, 66
Margosein, C. M., 117, 136
Marks, C., 74, 89
Marzano, R. J., 259, 263
McKeown, M. G., 27, 28, 30, 40, 43 , 44,
47, 66 , 76, 77 , 89 , 105, 107,
113 , 116, 131, 136, 173, 175
McKissack, P. C., 186, 187, 204
McLord, V. C., 155,7 75
McMahon, S. I., 185, 205
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, 251,
263

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary,
196, 200, 205
Mervis, C. B., 161, 175
Metsala, J., 36, 44
Mezynski, K., 33, 44
Morrow, L. M., 159, 175
Myers, J., 147 , 152
Myerson, M., 69, 89

Nagy, W. E., 7, 11, 16, 22, 30, 32, 37, 44 ,
46,47,48,49,67,69,70,71,
72, 76, 79, 80, 86, 89 , 97 , 114 ,
138, 139, 140, 142, 152 , 161,
175 , 181 , 205 , 225, 227 , 242 ,
244, 246, 250, 251 ,263
Nash, R„ 16, 22
Nation, I. S. P„ 70, 74, 76, 89
Nation, P, 78, 89

National Center for Education Statistics,
78, 89 , 115 , 136

National Reading Panel, 98, 103, 114 ,
117, 131, 136 , 142, 152 , 182,
205 , 223 , 242 , 258, 261 ,263
N1CHD, 2, 6, 7, 12, 19, 20, 22, 69, 81,

82, 83, 89
Ninio, A., 53, 67

O’Brien, R. C., 82, 89
Otterman, L. M., 181, 205

268

AUTHOR INDEX

Palincsar, A. S., 39, 44

Paribakht, T. S., 71,59

Pearson, P. D., 185, 186, 190, 195, 205

Penno.J. F., 69, 77, 90

Perez, E., 119, 136

Pfister, M„ 167, 175

Pianta, R. C., 157, 175, 176

Ramirez, S. Z., 119, 136
RAND Reading Study Group, 6, 19, 22,
27, 44, 70, 78, 80, 83, 90
Rausch, J. R„ 170, 176
Reese, E., 160, 176
Rinsland, H. D„ 240, 242
Robbins, C., 10, 22, 55, 67, 73, 74, 75,

77, 90

Rosemary, C. A., 158, 176
Ruddell, R. B„ 80, 90
Rylant, C., 123, 136

Saunders, W. M„ 99, 107, 114, 120, 136
Say, A., 259, 263

Scarborough, H. S., 156, 176, 225, 242
Schatz, E., 75, 90
Scholastic, 2, 22
Schooen, R., 143, 152
Schwanenflugel, P., 69, 71, 73, 75, 77, 81,
90, 117, 136, 156, 176
Scott, J. A., 6, 22, 10, 30, 40, 44, 78, 85,
86, 90, 98, 114, 117, 136, 181,
205

Senechal, M„ 46, 54, 55, 57, 67, 1 17,

136, 159, 176, 227, 242
Share, D. L„ 159, 176
Slavin, R. E„ 120, 122, 136
Smith, F„ 50, 67
Smith, J., 155, 176
Smith, M. W„ 158, 176
Snow, C. E., 17, 23, 53, 64, 67, 156, 176
Soundy, C. S„ 158, 176
Spinelli, J., 201 ,205
Spiro, R. J., 109, 114
Stahl, S. A., 27, 28, 31, 39, 44, 47, 50, 67,
71, 74, 84, 86, 90, 98, 99, 100,
101, 102, 103, 107, 114, 117,

131, 136, 142, 152, 159 ,176,
181, 201 ,205

Stanovich, K. E., 35, 44, 52, 57, 58, 59,
60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 67, 69, 78,
90, 98, 114
Stein, N. L., 141, 153
Sternberg, R. J., 32, 39, 44, 46, 47, 49,
64,67, 68, 184 ,205
Sticht, T. G„ 4, 23
Stillings, N„ 13,25
Storch, S. A., 156, 176
Sugimura, T., 161,776
Swanborn, M. S. L., 6, 23, 29, 44, 69, 76,
78, 79, 83, 90, 181 ,205

Taylor, B, M„ 158, 176
Templeton, S„ 202, 205
Texas Education Agency, 2, 23
Thayer, J., 220, 222
Thompson, E., 181, 205
Thorndike, E. L„ 1 1, 25, 247, 263
Tierney, R., 83, 85, 90
Tomesen, M., 1 17, 136

U. S. Census Bureau, 14, 25, 155, 176
Umbel, V. M„ 116, 1 36

Vaughn-Shavuo, E, 1 18, 136
Verhallen, M., 139, 153
Verhoeven, L, T., 138, 153
Voigt, C„ 201 ,205
Vollands, S. R„ 18, 25

Walberg, H.J., 17, 25, 64, 68
Walsh, K., 84, 90
Washington, J., 155, 176
Wasik. B. A., 57, 68, 159, 160, 176
Weaver, C. A., 82, 90
Weizman, Z. O., 157, 177
Wells, C. G., 157, 177
Wells, R„ 17, 25
Whipple, G.. 1, 6, 25
White, E. B., 209, 222

AUTHOR INDEX

269

White, T. G., 78, 90, 97, 1 1 1, 1 12 ,114,
117, 136, 181, 184,205, 226,
242

Whitehurst, G. J., 53, 54, 55, 57, 68, 159,
164, 177

Wilcox-Herzog, A., 158, 177
Wilder, L. I., 259, 263
Wiles, D„ 100, 114
Williams, K, T, 170, 177
Wittrock, M., 74, 91
Wixson, K. K., 1 1 7, 136

Wysocki, K„ 181,205
Y

Yep, L., 201,205

Zeno, S. M„ 2, 4, 5, 1 1, 23, 74, 91, 243,
244, 245, 246, 247, 249,

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Subject Index

Access hypothesis, 33, 40
Acquisition, 9, 47, 62, 70, 84, 225, 230,
239-240

Appropriate texts, 140
Aptitude hypothesis, 31-32, 39
At-risk learners, 16-17

Beginning readers, 3-4, 6, 62, 98-99,
219-220, 227, 240-241
PAVEd far success program, 156-157,
172-173

receptive vocabulary, 156
teacher talk, 157
word selection, 236-239
Bilingual learners. See English language
learners

Cognates, 14-16

Also see Words, origins of
Comprehension, 3, 30-32, 34, 61, 70
instruction of, 6, 27
oral, 4

Also see Oral language
self-monitoring of, 102
Computer-assisted activities, 1 0
Context, 7, 9, 12, 28-29, 47-49, 70, 72,
83,140, 146

clues, 184-185, 189-192, 199-201
contextual analysis, 196-198
definitional information of, 103
global, 77-79
local, 71, 84

Decoding, 3-4
Dictionary definitions, 105
Direct instruction, 49, 58, 98, 139, 151,
246

explicit targeted vocabulary, 161-162
guided practice, 194-195

Early readers. See Beginning readers
Emergent literacy profile, 37
English language learners
cognates, 141
enrollment, 115

271

272

SUBJECT INDEX

fifth-grade immigration intervention,
144, 147, 150
idiomatic language, 141
reading comprehension, 116-117,

138

transitional bilingual program
(model), 119-120, 130
vocabulary improvement project,
138-139

vocabulary instruction, 118
Explicit instruction, See Direct instruction

First grade, See Beginning readers

Generative word knowledge, 29

High school, See Upper grades

Incidental learning, 8, 13, 46, 49-50, 69,
79, 86

Independent readers, 56-57
Independent reading (practice), 58-59,
62, 64, 195-196, 198, 201
Instrumentalist hypothesis, 38-39

Keyword method, 8
Knowledge hypothesis, 31, 39

Lexicon of individuals, 1 1, 48, 53, 60
M

Mathew effect, 35, 63
Metalinguistic awareness, 35-36
Middle grades, 6, 11, 99, 120, 148, 180,
183, 248, 254

Morphological awareness (morphol-
ogy/morphemes), 38, 72, 85,

111

Also see Words, origins of

affixes, 111, 179-180, 185-187
antonyms, 104
root words, 97, 226
semantic families, 250-251
word-part clues, 184, 189-193,
199-201

Oral language, 4, 29, 50-51, 126
See also Vocabulary, oral

Phonological awareness, 36-37
Primary grades, See Beginning readers

Read-aloud events, 10, 53-55, 77, 100
Reciprocal hypothesis, 40

Schema, 95

Semantic mapping, 8, 104
Strategies

building bridges, 165-166
CAR talk, 158-159, 164
didactic-interactional book reading,
160

discussion strategy, 107
mnemonics, 8

novel-name nameless category (N3C)
presentation strategy,
161-162

possible sentences, 106
repetition, 13, 76
retelling, 100
scenarios, 106-107
suggestopedia, 119
text talk, 107
Synonyms, 101

Technology. See Computer-assisted activi-
ties

Tests

multiple choice, 229-230
open-ended,

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